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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, Sophia Bush here. Welcome to Work in Progress,

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Speaker 1: where I talked to people who inspire me about how

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Speaker 1: they got to where they are and where they think

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Speaker 1: they're still going. On today's episode, I made a new friend,

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Speaker 1: and I am beyond excited because he's always been a

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Speaker 1: personal hero of mine. Today I'm talking to Michael Moore. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the Michael Moore whose brilliant documentaries like Pulling for Columbine,

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Speaker 1: Fahrenheit nine eleven and Fahrenheit eleven nine have made us

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Speaker 1: take a step back and examine the systems in which

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Speaker 1: we're living. And now he has a new podcast called Rumble.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk about why he chose to start it and

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Speaker 1: the importance of having long and thoughtful conversations and listening

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Speaker 1: to others. He also tells me he thinks four or

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Speaker 1: five candidates have the ability to beat Trump. Thank you, Michael,

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Speaker 1: And he explains that the America he wants to save

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Speaker 1: is the America we haven't had yet, but he believes

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Speaker 1: it's coming. I hope you'll enjoy this conversation as much

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Speaker 1: as I did. Welcome Michael Moore. First of all, let

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Speaker 1: me just say I'm thrilled you're here and I'm now

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Speaker 1: extra excited to learn that you drink your coffee out

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Speaker 1: of an Oprah mug. Yes, that was fantastic, my Oprah Mug.

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Speaker 1: I was on the show. I think four or five

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Speaker 1: times love that over the years. And uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: have you ever met her? Yes? And I I kept

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Speaker 1: my cool somehow. I thought I was going to pass out,

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Speaker 1: but I held it together. It really is like you're

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Speaker 1: in the room with some other worldly person. And when

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Speaker 1: she comes out before the show to talk to the

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Speaker 1: audience in the pre show, it's I mean literally, people

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Speaker 1: are in tears. You cannot believe they're in the same room.

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Speaker 1: But she's such a good soul and a force for good.

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Speaker 1: And I've been encouraging her to run for president for

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Speaker 1: some time because I think she would win very easily.

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Speaker 1: I do too, And I think she would be so wonderful. Yes,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, Yes, Uh, she would care, she would

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Speaker 1: be kind, but also she would expect people to get

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Speaker 1: the job done. Like if anybody in Congress was misbehaving,

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Speaker 1: they'd have to come in for an hour session with

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Speaker 1: Dr phil or something like that. Wouldn't that be great?

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Speaker 1: This I said to her too. I said, listen, I

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Speaker 1: will if you will run for president, I will make

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Speaker 1: sure that you'll still be able to do the four

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Speaker 1: pm show every day from the Oval office, because I

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Speaker 1: understood or Oprah becoming president is not it's really a

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Speaker 1: step down. I mean, what's your Oprah, what's above that?

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, but she said no. But this

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Speaker 1: was the years ago when I asked her to do this,

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Speaker 1: and now she has been toying with it, as you

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Speaker 1: probably know, in the last year or so. Maybe the

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Speaker 1: two of us need to take her to dinner and

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Speaker 1: just have a little brainstorm. Yes, yes, I will. I'm

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Speaker 1: down with that. I will do whatever it needs to

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Speaker 1: be done. I mean I have felt. Look, here's how

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Speaker 1: I feel about next year's election. The Democrats that are running.

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Speaker 1: There's easily four or five current Democrats that I believe

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Speaker 1: will beat uh Donald Trump. Oh my god, Michael, you

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Speaker 1: don't know how relieved I am to hear you say that.

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Speaker 1: I actually just my whole body just relaxed. I was

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Speaker 1: so scared that today you were going to say we're

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Speaker 1: fucked and he's winning again, and I I can't tell

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Speaker 1: you what that means to me. Well, we are fucked.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I will not need equivocally. But listen, if

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Speaker 1: the election were held today, I'm absolutely convinced that in

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Speaker 1: the popular vote, Hillary won by three million votes. I

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Speaker 1: believe the Democrat, whoever it would be, whether it was

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Speaker 1: Bernie or Elizabeth, Biden or Boudage, they would win the

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Speaker 1: popular vote by five to maybe even six million votes.

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Speaker 1: I believe it would almost double from what people have

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Speaker 1: been going through. The people who stayed home, especially in

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Speaker 1: the large states like California, New York, they are going

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Speaker 1: to come out in droves next year. But the keywords

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Speaker 1: there were California, New York. Because what we have to

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Speaker 1: win is Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. Hillary just one Minnesota by

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Speaker 1: a few thousand votes, so that's a state on the edge,

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Speaker 1: as his New Hampshire. So we have our our work

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Speaker 1: in front of us. I'm i hesitate because I don't

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Speaker 1: want anybody to think when I when I just said

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Speaker 1: that that I'm I'm somewhat hopeful, because I also know

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Speaker 1: that we could very easily again kill it in the

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Speaker 1: popular vote, and we could lose the electrocology again. It's

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Speaker 1: very possible. So relax, relax a little bit, but you know,

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Speaker 1: don't sit back in the chair. All of us from

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Speaker 1: this moment until next November three, we have to be um.

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Speaker 1: Every available moment we have should be spent on what

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Speaker 1: am I doing to help end the madness and the

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Speaker 1: madness and then not just get rid of Trump. I

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Speaker 1: think we have a were's two jobs to do. Get

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Speaker 1: rid of Trump, but also get rid of the pieces

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Speaker 1: of the system that gave us Trump. You know, the

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Speaker 1: electoral system that's all messed up, that where where Russians

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Speaker 1: can interfere with it, where people can hack into the

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Speaker 1: We should have no computerized voting. I mean, I wish,

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Speaker 1: I hope states are stopping that between now and next November,

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Speaker 1: because that's a real danger. But the system that Trump

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Speaker 1: didn't fall out of the sky, so we have to

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Speaker 1: we have to understand how did he get here, how

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Speaker 1: did this happen, and how do we make sure it

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Speaker 1: never happens again. God, I'm excited to get into this

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Speaker 1: with you today. I before we before we take a

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Speaker 1: deep dive down the rabbit hole, I am very excited

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Speaker 1: to tell my audience about something. You just launched a

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Speaker 1: podcast of your own called Rumble, which I love. You're

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Speaker 1: the first person I'm speaking to. I mean literally, we

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Speaker 1: just launched a couple hours ago. I'm so excited about it. Michael.

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Speaker 1: I saw the name and I and I and I

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Speaker 1: had this vision of you like you, You send these

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Speaker 1: sort of seismic shock waves through systems of complacency. And

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Speaker 1: I think Rumble is a genius title for you and

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Speaker 1: for your podcast. I might also be partial because I

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Speaker 1: grew up in California. I'm an earthquake veteran um and

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Speaker 1: I and I and I just love the idea of

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Speaker 1: of causing kind of a you know, shaking through the

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Speaker 1: ground to to wake people up. So what's it about

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Speaker 1: and what made you want to start a podcast? Well,

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Speaker 1: I've always been a great efficionado of sound. I believe sound,

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Speaker 1: especially in the work that you and I do, is

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Speaker 1: often neglected or ignored or given the short shrift. And

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Speaker 1: when I go in to speak to a class of

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Speaker 1: film students, I tell them right away sound is more

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Speaker 1: important than picture, uh the because it's the sound that

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Speaker 1: carries the story. If you've ever been in a movie theater,

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Speaker 1: and let's say the frame of the film is a

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Speaker 1: little off on the curtain or or the camera person

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Speaker 1: who shot at the camera jiggles a little goes out

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Speaker 1: of focus. You know, the average person does not care.

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Speaker 1: But watch what happens in a movie theater. Suddenly the

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Speaker 1: song goes out. People people are screaming that writting out

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Speaker 1: the door to tell the manager. They're throwing you know,

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Speaker 1: goober's at the screen. And that's because the sound is

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Speaker 1: what is really carrying the story the picture. This is

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Speaker 1: the art part of it. This is the the nice

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Speaker 1: icing on the cake. But if you can't hear it,

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Speaker 1: it's no good. So I've always thought that the medium

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Speaker 1: that allows us to not see pictures. I remember my grandparents.

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Speaker 1: I mean they had a big old radio in the

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Speaker 1: living room. And my grandfather was born just three years

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Speaker 1: after the Civil War. So yeah, I know you're you know,

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Speaker 1: you're looking and you're thinking, Mike, really, I mean, you

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Speaker 1: look so young. How could this be possible? It's impossible.

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Speaker 1: But what happened is in my family and that's just

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Speaker 1: my grandfather. Now, that's that's my mom's dad. Civil War.

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Speaker 1: But it seemed like the men and if these three

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Speaker 1: generations all got married late, they didn't get married to

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Speaker 1: their or have children. Maybe they got married earlier, but

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Speaker 1: they didn't somehow, they didn't have children until they were

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Speaker 1: in their forties or fifties, and that kind of slowed

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Speaker 1: everything down. What happens when you have grandparents that are

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Speaker 1: from the right after the Civil War is the stories

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Speaker 1: that are being passed down through the generations don't go

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Speaker 1: through seven sets of grandparents. It's just it just went

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Speaker 1: from him to my mom to me. So I saw

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Speaker 1: a different way of living. They didn't have I don't

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Speaker 1: know if they had any paint on their walls or wallpaper,

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Speaker 1: because it was nothing but bookshelves. Every wall was a

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Speaker 1: bookshelf and hundreds of books. Because that's how they entertained themselves.

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Speaker 1: They read. They read books, and the two other things

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Speaker 1: that were in the living room was this big gas

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Speaker 1: radio and musical instruments. They played the Irish fiddle, my

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Speaker 1: uncle played the saxophone. Everybody everybody played the piano, and

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Speaker 1: it was one of those kind of old Irish upright,

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Speaker 1: you know, pianos, not the grand sort of but that's

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Speaker 1: how they entertained themselves. And so out of that radio

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Speaker 1: they would sit around and I remember that they were

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Speaker 1: probably the last people in the town that I grew

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Speaker 1: up in that had a television. So this is right

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Speaker 1: up into the sixties they're still listening to the very

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Speaker 1: few shows that are left on the radio that told

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Speaker 1: a story, The Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet. And it

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Speaker 1: was clear to me, after I reached a certain age,

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Speaker 1: the reason they enjoyed just the sound so much was

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Speaker 1: because they got to make the movie in their head.

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Speaker 1: They got to create the images. And everybody has a

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Speaker 1: different camera and a different director in their heads, and

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Speaker 1: everybody is filming it and seeing it in a different way,

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Speaker 1: slightly different. The story is the same because they have

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Speaker 1: the audio for the story. I was fascinated by that,

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Speaker 1: and so I listened to that for as long as

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Speaker 1: it lasted into the sixties and then around um and

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Speaker 1: I kind of tell the story in this first podcast

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Speaker 1: that we just posted a few hours ago, of how

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Speaker 1: Kennedy President Kennedy was assassinated in November of and I

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Speaker 1: was nine years old, and it had quite a chilling

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Speaker 1: effect on a nine year old like me. And two

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Speaker 1: days after he's killed, three days after he's killed, I

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Speaker 1: was the only one in delivering watching TV and a

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Speaker 1: man stepped out of the shadows. They were bringing the assassin,

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Speaker 1: uh Lee Harvey Oswald through the police garage and a

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Speaker 1: man stepped out, put a gun to him and killed him.

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Speaker 1: And as a nine year old, I'm literally watching a

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Speaker 1: man being shot and killed in front of my eyes,

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Speaker 1: and I'm screaming at my mom to turn off the

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Speaker 1: vacuum because I couldn't hear what was going on, and

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Speaker 1: they didn't have instant replay then, so they weren't replaying it.

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Speaker 1: She's what's wrong. They've They've just killed Oswald. And I

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Speaker 1: was pretty messed up for the next month. I had

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Speaker 1: a lot of nightmares. And so it was Christmas time

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Speaker 1: a month later, and the one gift that I got

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Speaker 1: that my parents got me for that Christmas was a

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Speaker 1: large reel to reel tape recorder. It was like thirty pounds.

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Speaker 1: It was not a portable thing. It had the big

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Speaker 1: reels of tape. And immediately I just started recording, recording

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Speaker 1: my thoughts, recording the thoughts of my sisters. The kids

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Speaker 1: in the neighborhood would come and stare at it. We'd

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Speaker 1: sit around the table and have a discussion. And so

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Speaker 1: I've been doing this a version of this since I

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Speaker 1: was nine years old, and I appreciated an early age

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Speaker 1: the idea of just capturing the sound just that you

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Speaker 1: and I having this conversation without anything other than but

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Speaker 1: listening to each other, something that is an art that

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Speaker 1: sadly has been lost, certainly in the contentious times in

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Speaker 1: which we live. The idea of listening to somebody else

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Speaker 1: it seems out the window. I think that's really the

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Speaker 1: foundation of why I wanted to do this too. As

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Speaker 1: as an activist and a journalist and also a storyteller

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Speaker 1: by trade, I found that, you know, sure, I can

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Speaker 1: write a version of a short essay on Instagram about

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Speaker 1: a cause, but this allowing people into the room for

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Speaker 1: a personal dialogue, for an exploration, for the ability to

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Speaker 1: talk about something and find your feeling about it rather

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Speaker 1: than be expected to have a sound bite ready to go.

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Speaker 1: It feels like a way to bring us back to ourselves,

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Speaker 1: and it feels it's so nice. Yeah, yeah, I love it.

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Speaker 1: I love I mean, look, I like going on Rachel

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Speaker 1: and and uh MSNBC and all that. But you know,

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Speaker 1: they tell you you have seven and a half minutes

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Speaker 1: for a very large discussion, So you are talking in

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Speaker 1: those bites. You're talking in those sound bites, and this

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Speaker 1: allows you and I the comfort to be ourselves, be authentic,

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Speaker 1: you know, the voices. People are listening to us now.

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Speaker 1: They're not listening to you playing a character, and they're

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Speaker 1: not listening to me chasing down Eric Trump or whatever

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Speaker 1: I have to be doing on any given day. There

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Speaker 1: is a malaise in this country right now. The despair,

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Speaker 1: the level of the despair is intense. People come up

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Speaker 1: to me. I'm sure they come up to you. They

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Speaker 1: want to talk, they want to tell you. They ask you, Sophia,

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Speaker 1: what can we do? What? What? What? What's the plan?

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Speaker 1: What's the and you know, you and I mean, we

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Speaker 1: have some ideas, but we're you know, we don't have

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Speaker 1: the plan in our back pocket here. But I see it,

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Speaker 1: and I just I felt like I could do what

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Speaker 1: I would normally do an election year, which is to

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Speaker 1: make a documentary and and that'll take me about a

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Speaker 1: year to make, and so that means it'll be done.

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Speaker 1: If I had started a couple of months ago, i'd

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Speaker 1: be done next October and it would be in theaters

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Speaker 1: for you know, three or four weeks before the election.

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Speaker 1: That's great. I know the impact that my films have

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Speaker 1: had over the years, I'm well aware of it. But

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Speaker 1: I thought to myself, and I had this offer to

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Speaker 1: to make my next film. I also had an offer

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Speaker 1: to do a episodic TV series with you know, one

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Speaker 1: of the big streamers, and I just said, I know,

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Speaker 1: I have got to do this. I've got to do

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Speaker 1: something where I have daily or at least weekly contact

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Speaker 1: with people, be it online or whatever. But I have

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Speaker 1: got to jump in and be with the with the mob.

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Speaker 1: We need to serve the mob. We need to be

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Speaker 1: I need you and I were all one and of

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Speaker 1: the same. We're all in this together. We're gonna sink

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Speaker 1: or swim together. I'd rather not sink. And so I thought,

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Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna start. I'm gonna do a

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Speaker 1: number of things digitally and online, but I'm gonna start

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Speaker 1: with a podcast. I'm gonna go back to what I

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Speaker 1: did when I was a child, what I loved doing,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to listen to people, and I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: I'll put out some ideas every week about what we

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Speaker 1: can be doing. I don't want people to feel lost.

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Speaker 1: I don't want them to give up. Yeah, feeling I mean,

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Speaker 1: feeling lost is such an inhibitor to action. And I

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Speaker 1: think that's actually the aim of the people in power

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Speaker 1: right now is to make people feel so helpless that

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Speaker 1: they give up, and it really is on us to

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Speaker 1: kind of hold on to that hope. And I guess

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Speaker 1: it makes me curious what kinds of things do you

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Speaker 1: want to talk to people about it. Are there a

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Speaker 1: few things that you can share with us that you're

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Speaker 1: going to offer to your audience in the coming weeks. Yes,

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Speaker 1: First of all, I want I need everybody calm down,

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Speaker 1: and what I what I had said at the beginning

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Speaker 1: of this, We have a good chance of winning. So

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Speaker 1: let's enter it with that in mind, not with this

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Speaker 1: sort of oh, I don't know, and you know, let's

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Speaker 1: let's just go for it here. And let me say

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Speaker 1: to everybody who's listening, get behind somebody, Study all the candidates,

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Speaker 1: find the one that's closely aligns with the things that

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Speaker 1: you believe in and care about, and then get supporting

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Speaker 1: that candidate in the primaries right now, because the IOWA

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Speaker 1: is what seven weeks away, not I mean not long

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Speaker 1: first Monday of February, maybe eight weeks. But I really

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Speaker 1: think it's important for everyone to do what they can do.

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Speaker 1: And I make no judgment. If you're for Mayor Pete,

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Speaker 1: get out there and help mayor Pete. If you're for Elizabeth,

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Speaker 1: help Elizabeth Warren. If you're for Bernie, help Bernie. I mean, listen,

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Speaker 1: I don't need to state the obvious. Any of the

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Speaker 1: eighteen running or we're running, would be better than Trump.

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Speaker 1: So you can't go wrong. If you're just throwing a

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Speaker 1: dart with a blindfold on, we're gonna do better. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry to set the bar so low, but um well,

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Speaker 1: he's really pulled us down. It's like we're past the basement.

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Speaker 1: We're so far down the bar has been lowered into

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Speaker 1: the earth. Somebody said to me the other day that

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Speaker 1: we actually we do better if we voted for somebody

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Speaker 1: who voted for Trump then up himself that that there's

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Speaker 1: at least a third of the people that voted for

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Speaker 1: Trump that are probably fairly decent people and and have

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Speaker 1: good thoughts, and they're raising good kids, and it might

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Speaker 1: actually good at bus. You never know, you never know,

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Speaker 1: you never know, So I'm gonna I'm getting into that. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: it's an election year. I'm gonna talk about that. You know,

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Speaker 1: I'm I personally am supporting Bernie, but I've supported him

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Speaker 1: since the first time he ran for Congress back in

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Speaker 1: I think he was having a rally up there, trying

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Speaker 1: to get elected to Congress, and um he was trying

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Speaker 1: to get he was reaching out to celebrities, and he

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Speaker 1: couldn't get anybody to come and stand on the stage

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Speaker 1: with him. And there were I mean, there were very

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Speaker 1: big celebrities at that time, Crocodile, Dundee, Millie Vanilli. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there were some, you know, big people he could have got,

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Speaker 1: but he couldn't get them to come. And and so

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Speaker 1: I got there, and the only people he could get

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Speaker 1: to come on the stage to speak for him were

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Speaker 1: two guys from Vermont who made ice cream and Ben

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Speaker 1: and Jerry's, and one guy from Michigan, me who eight

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Speaker 1: ice cream. So that was that was all he had.

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Speaker 1: So I've been a supporter of him and what he

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Speaker 1: believes in and what he's fought for for many, many,

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Speaker 1: many many years, and saw no reason obviously to change

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Speaker 1: that now. But I will tell you that Elizabeth Warren

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Speaker 1: has appeared in two of my movies. I first encountered

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Speaker 1: her back in two thousand and five, was blown away

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Speaker 1: by the way she was articulating what the problem was

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Speaker 1: with our income inequality, and and she has remained true

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Speaker 1: and has fought for that all these years and have

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Speaker 1: put her in you know, I've ended up putting it

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Speaker 1: in a couple of my my films. You know. I've

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Speaker 1: run into Joe Biden on a number of occasions. I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you this, he's actually but of course I remember,

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Speaker 1: I'm a guy, so m this is just he's never

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Speaker 1: sniffed my hair. Um so but so easy for me

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Speaker 1: to say. But he was always nice to me and

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Speaker 1: seemed like a decent person, and I always gave him

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Speaker 1: props for kind of pushing President Obama sort of accidentally

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Speaker 1: to come out publicly in favor of same sex marriage

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Speaker 1: in the election, which Obama was a little afraid to do,

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Speaker 1: but Biden kind of put it out there and he

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Speaker 1: couldn't do anything about that. I don't know if you

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Speaker 1: remember that, but he was, you know, kind of instrumental

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Speaker 1: and moving that forward, uh, in his own kind of

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Speaker 1: goofy way. So my point is, whoever you support, I support,

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Speaker 1: you just do something. Don't stay at home. If you

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Speaker 1: stay at home, call these campaigns because digitally now you

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Speaker 1: can make phone calls. You can call voters from whatever

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Speaker 1: state you're in to support a candidate. You can, they'll

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Speaker 1: give they will give you a set list of people

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Speaker 1: who vote in Iowa, and you can sit there in

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Speaker 1: Pasadena or Tacoma, Washington, or Boise, Idaho and make calls

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Speaker 1: for your candidate. That's my main thing. I want to

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Speaker 1: just encourage that people study the candidates, see who best

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Speaker 1: supports you and what you believe in, and go for it.

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Speaker 1: That's great. There's actually a really cool online resource. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure if you've heard of it. It's called I

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Speaker 1: Side With and it's a quiz. It's a political quiz

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Speaker 1: and you go through and take it and it tells

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Speaker 1: you with what percentage of accuracy you identify with which candidate.

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Speaker 1: And I've been really illuminating for a lot of people

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Speaker 1: to go, oh, I've made perhaps this one issue my

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Speaker 1: tent pole for voting, but actually I of what's important

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Speaker 1: to me. I side with Warren or Bernie or Buddha.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's a really, I think good wake up

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Speaker 1: call because politics, as we all know, has been so

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Speaker 1: weaponized against us in such a strange way, and we

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Speaker 1: outsize certain issues over others, and we shouldn't. You know,

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Speaker 1: the point of being an active member of society is

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Speaker 1: that we live in society, we function well in society.

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Speaker 1: We should be prioritizing our society, our community, our neighbors,

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Speaker 1: and the powers that be, I think really prey on

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Speaker 1: our natural little lizard brain tendencies to be very individualistic

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Speaker 1: and very tribal, and that's actually not what makes any

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Speaker 1: of us happy. You know, we're village creatures and we

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Speaker 1: we should be voting with our village for their betterment

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Speaker 1: and and to me at least personally, and whatever to

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Speaker 1: your point, Michael, whatever it means to people listening, But

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Speaker 1: to me, that means health care, that means clean water,

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Speaker 1: That means prioritizing the environment for everyone, regardless of their

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Speaker 1: political beliefs or religious beliefs. You know, we we're in

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Speaker 1: this together, and I would like for us to start

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Speaker 1: voting like it right, But that I that's beautifully put

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Speaker 1: because what you're right, As a species, we are social animals,

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Speaker 1: we are social beings. We are not hermits, and we

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Speaker 1: don't function well when we are just all about ourselves

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Speaker 1: and with ourselves. And I think that quiz which I'm

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Speaker 1: going to take as soon as we're done with this,

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Speaker 1: because no, because I'm imagining what it does, is it

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Speaker 1: would show me, like, say, let's say you like Biden

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Speaker 1: because of where he stands on labor and unions. So

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Speaker 1: that's your one that's your one issue. But take the

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Speaker 1: quiz and you realize, oh, he's not really that as

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Speaker 1: good as i'd like him to be. A mass incarceration

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Speaker 1: or some of the attitudes about women or whatever are

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Speaker 1: make me uncomfortable. Could be any even number things you

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Speaker 1: discover if you took you know, took this test. So

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Speaker 1: this is that's not like a great idea. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool, and I think it can just remind us

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Speaker 1: what's important for me. You know, when when you talk

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Speaker 1: about the candidate spread sometimes I look at the debate

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Speaker 1: stage and I go, I'll take any of you five

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Speaker 1: or you four for president, and then how about we

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Speaker 1: just fill the entire cabinet with the rest of you, Like,

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Speaker 1: let's give everybody a position and you go be a

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Speaker 1: pro on what you are incredible at. You know, we

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Speaker 1: need all these people, we need all their progressive ideas.

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Speaker 1: We need in in my opinion anyway, to be frank

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Speaker 1: about the financing of America. You know, somebody said to

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Speaker 1: me recently at a at a debate night gathering, Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: if you were president tomorrow, what would you do? And

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Speaker 1: I said, the first thing I would do would bring

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Speaker 1: in a bunch of auditors, a bunch of like forensic auditors.

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Speaker 1: You know when someone goes through a lawsuit, let's say

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Speaker 1: in our business and entertainer SUSA Studio, and they do

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Speaker 1: a forensic got it. I want to see a forensic

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Speaker 1: audit of the entire United States budget. I want to

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Speaker 1: know where all this money is going. Because I know

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Speaker 1: we've got the money to pay for healthcare. I know

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Speaker 1: we've got the money to pay for infrastructure spending. I

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Speaker 1: know we've got the money to pay to transfer our

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Speaker 1: agricultural system to a Regenerative Act system, which in five

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Speaker 1: years would completely reverse climate change. I know we've got

429
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: the money to pay for education. So I want to

430
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 1: know where it's going, right, you know? That would be

431
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 1: that would be my first step. So I I would

432
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 1: like to see some candidate or some elected official in

433
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:30,919
Speaker 1: a high cabinet position say, you know, this is the

434
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 1: thing we should be doing, and state by state, every

435
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,120
Speaker 1: state should be forensically audited as well. Where is all

436
00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: the money going? I lived in Chicago for four years.

437
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,680
Speaker 1: Oh it's my dream. I lived in Chicago for four years,

438
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: and when I tell you, the same roads were under

439
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:49,120
Speaker 1: construction for the entirety of my tenure as an Illinois

440
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: state resident. I was like, guys, what's going on here?

441
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 1: Something shading? You know, you're telling me we don't have

442
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: you know, you grew up in Flint. You're telling me

443
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: we don't have the money to replace the water pipes

444
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: and Flint, I know we do, and I just wonder,

445
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: what are we going on that? Yes, all these years later,

446
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 1: the pipes have not been replaced, and now what they're

447
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 1: doing is they're only replacing the pipes out under the street,

448
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: the main line of the pipes, but the pipes that

449
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 1: go into each home and then the internal house plumbing.

450
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 1: This is all wrecked. It's all poisons and the whole

451
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: thing has to be torn out and put back together.

452
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 1: And yes, it's expensive, but you know it's we probably

453
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 1: the cost of half half of the bombing of a

454
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: bomber would of those. It's just, yeah, that's such a

455
00:26:45,320 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: good idea. You see, you're so you obviously have a

456
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: logical mind, you're smart. Definitely, the first thing would be,

457
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 1: let's figure out where the money is and who's been

458
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: spending it, who's hiding it? All that? See, my first idea,

459
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 1: if I were president on the first day, it would

460
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: be free Hbo for everybody like that, you know, just

461
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 1: give That's a really nice perk, Michael. And maybe and

462
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: now maybe free free Netflix and Amazon too, just because

463
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:14,600
Speaker 1: all the good shows are there. People shouldn't have to

464
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: pay extra for that. They work hard all week, they

465
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: come home at night, they come on the weekend. You

466
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: just want to sit on and watch something good. Look,

467
00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: we all deserve a little Mrs mais Al, Yes, exactly.

468
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 1: And have you watched this season yet? No, I'm saving it.

469
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: Don't tell me anything. Okay, we'll say I'm literally saving

470
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: it for my holiday break, and I i am. The

471
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:39,679
Speaker 1: anticipation feels electric. Yes, well, it won't disappoint. But the

472
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: other the next thing I would do is I would

473
00:27:42,359 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: decree that there is to be from now on one

474
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: charge chord for all devices, the same exact chord, so

475
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:51,880
Speaker 1: you don't have to buy three or four chords every

476
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: time they change the device you gotta buy new chords.

477
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 1: Just one chord for everything, your phone, tablet, the laptop,

478
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 1: and why not now the have the that wireless circle.

479
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: So imagine if everything could just go on the wireless

480
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: thing and stack up at all. No courts just do that.

481
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing. Big government, that what they like

482
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: to call big government of the people to ride our

483
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: government over a hundred years ago decided, when electricity was

484
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 1: putting people's homes and people were going to buy lamps

485
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 1: and radios and whatever, they decided that every device, everything

486
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,199
Speaker 1: in the house would have a plug. It would have

487
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 1: two prongs at the same exact distance the prongs from

488
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: each other, and there'd be two holes in the wall.

489
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 1: That hasn't change. To look over the wall, look over

490
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 1: the wall, it's the same two holes in the wall,

491
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: the same anything you have to plug in, it's the

492
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: same two that that big government did that. And if

493
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: you were a lamp manufacturer, and you know, back then,

494
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 1: they didn't have refrigerators, they didn't have TVs. But whatever

495
00:28:53,640 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 1: new device came along, including the laptop, the laptop that's

496
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: plugged in right now, boom, uh, there it is and

497
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: everybody has it and it's all equal. It seems like

498
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: such a simple idea. And if it's gonna happen with

499
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: the blue circle or whatever it is that you were

500
00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: mentioning there some bluetooth means or whatever, that's what we

501
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: should be doing. I just want to make people's lives simpler,

502
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 1: and I want them to when they get sick, never

503
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: have to worry about going broke, losing their home, or

504
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: cutting back on well. I guess I could take half

505
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: the medication that the doctor wants you to take. This

506
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: madness people who are dying because I mean, we're monsters.

507
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 1: Yes it is no and I'll tell you history. Assuming

508
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: the planet gets to live. Actually I think the planet

509
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: will live. We're the ones that are going to die.

510
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: The planet is going to take care of us. For

511
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,160
Speaker 1: trying to kill the planet. We forget how powerful they

512
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:53,719
Speaker 1: will take care of us. In a hundred years, they

513
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: will look back at us and they're not going to

514
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,719
Speaker 1: believe that we wouldn't let people see a doctor when

515
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: they got sick, that if people wanted to educate themselves,

516
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: they had to be in debt for the next thirty years.

517
00:30:06,880 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: Crazy crazy stuff you touch on education and education really

518
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: is the foundation of all things for me, and I

519
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,240
Speaker 1: think about how lucky I am to have had the

520
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: trajectory that I did and to have been able to

521
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: attend schools that were wonderful and to have been able

522
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 1: to study journalism and political science and and all sorts

523
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: of creative avenues. And I'm very curious what your take

524
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 1: on the demonization of higher education is, because Trump and

525
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: a lot of his cronies do this thing where they

526
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: call anyone with a degree and elite. And to me,

527
00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 1: the the sort of highest expression of a country working

528
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: well is that it's people can be educated in whatever

529
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: way they want to be. Be a botanist, be a

530
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: molecular biologist, be a journalist, study philosophy. You know. These

531
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: things expand our minds, they make us more creative. They

532
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: help us create technology that saves lives. They're the reason

533
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: that we have medical devices and hospitals, and and I

534
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: I find it to be tragic that they deny resources

535
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: to the average working American, keep them out of higher education,

536
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: and then tell those people who have been denied the

537
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: opportunity to pursue education that it's the educated people who

538
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 1: are against them and judging them. It creates this evil

539
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: It's the same sort of circle of sort of evil

540
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: messaging that I think about when they demonize immigrants. And

541
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: I take it very personally. You know, my grandmother immigrated

542
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: to the United States through Ellis Island from Italy. Was

543
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: one of those families who came through and signed the

544
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: Ledger and and had the Italian immigrant experience. And my

545
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: father immigrated from Canada before I was born, but at

546
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: twelve became When I was twelve, my dad became a

547
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: United States citizen, and I remember helping him study for

548
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 1: his citizenship test and making flash cards in the day

549
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: that he did it. And it was this whole experience.

550
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: But my dad's family immigrated to Canada through from Ireland.

551
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: And so it makes me crazy that all these people

552
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: who demean immigrants are either the children ever the grandchildren

553
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: of immigrants themselves. And I'll just I'll say it right out.

554
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: Every single person who's an American listening to this or

555
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: lives in America, even if you're not a citizen. Everyone,

556
00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: with the exception of Americans who are descendant of slaves

557
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 1: and Indians, Native Americans who are the original people. Everybody, everybody,

558
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: let's say this is a descendant of immigrants. You are

559
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: only enjoying the fruits of this land because somebody in

560
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 1: your family found more than likely a very difficult way

561
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: to get here, a very expensive way to get here,

562
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: and when they got here, they were not treated very

563
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: well either at that time. Because this is it seems

564
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: like human nature that once I get in the door,

565
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: I need to shut the door so nobody else comes

566
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: through that door so I have a better chance. Once

567
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:29,959
Speaker 1: I climbed the ladder, I'm gonna pull the ladder up

568
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: because I don't want all that competition from down below.

569
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: It's just a sad statement about us as human beings,

570
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: and certainly as Americans. But no, that's true. Like your Canadian,

571
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 1: your dad was Canadian? Right, And were you born in Canada? No,

572
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,840
Speaker 1: I was born here. You're born here? Yeah, I was.

573
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: I was born here in the US. I was born

574
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: in California. My dad moved from Montreal to go to

575
00:33:56,200 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: Art Center, and my mom moved from the East Coast

576
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: and moved into the same apartment building my dad lived in.

577
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: And my mom had this big bruiser Doberman, and you know,

578
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 1: she's like this tough Italian broad from Jersey, and my

579
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 1: my mom's dog, who was the best behaved dog on

580
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: the planet. I grew up with him, would always try

581
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 1: to bite my dad. And my mom was like, it's

582
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: so weird. This dog has never growled at a person,

583
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 1: let alone like nipped at their heels. The dog just

584
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:27,799
Speaker 1: hated my dad from ghet and I guess he had

585
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: more of a spiky sense that he my dad was

586
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 1: coming to encroach on his territory. But that's how that's

587
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: what got my parents talking to each other. Or the

588
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 1: dog was trying to take care of your mom to

589
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: talk to this guy. Um, thank god for that dog

590
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 1: because we have no you. Oh yeah, my mom was like,

591
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: I don't know. Your dad wasn't the kind of guy

592
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 1: I grew up with. He was like, soft spoken, he

593
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: was an artist. It was the seventies. He wore tight pants,

594
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: he had long hair. He was always lipp in his hair.

595
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:04,840
Speaker 1: She's like, I thought he was gay. She was like,

596
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:06,479
Speaker 1: you know, he's hanging out with like all these cool

597
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:08,800
Speaker 1: makeup artists. I just thought he was gay too. I

598
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: didn't know he was hitting on me. So it's like

599
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 1: this hilarious story of how they met, and yeah, it was.

600
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: It was the dog. Was he a French speaking Montreal

601
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: in order? I mean, he fancies that he speaks a

602
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:26,280
Speaker 1: little bit of French. But I'm always like, Dad, please stop,

603
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:30,880
Speaker 1: I love you, just don't it's embarrassed. Just don't because

604
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: my dad's family is not French. There you know, again

605
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:39,280
Speaker 1: descended from the Irish, from from the Irish, but again

606
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 1: the Irish. The Irish. Hundred years ago, there were signs

607
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: all over New York, no Irish need apply. They thought

608
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: of Irish has to be in the real kind of

609
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:51,239
Speaker 1: scummy white people that they didn't want to associate with.

610
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: And that's what's so interesting to me too, is that

611
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: it is so many descendants of people who were mistreated

612
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: who are willing, it seems now, you know, you look

613
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,280
Speaker 1: at half the Senate who are so willing to mistreat

614
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: people who look different from them, and it's like, can

615
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: we just acknowledge if you know how hard your grandparents

616
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: had it, if they were like mine, you know Irish

617
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: and Italian people, if you know what what a struggle

618
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,720
Speaker 1: they were put through, you really can't, for one moment

619
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:25,800
Speaker 1: pull back to a bird's eye view and acknowledge how

620
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:29,759
Speaker 1: much harder and how much more compounded the oppression has

621
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: been for people of color, for black and brown and

622
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,320
Speaker 1: indigenous people in this country, and you can't say, wow,

623
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: I know how my family suffered, and I know how

624
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 1: much more these people have been put through suffering. I

625
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 1: should try to be the best ally and accomplice that

626
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 1: I can to help heal historical wounds. I can't fathom

627
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: that that's not how we all walk around in the world. Yeah, listen,

628
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:58,280
Speaker 1: I would I hear Irish and Italian make bigoted comments

629
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: or make comments about immigrants. You know, I stopped them

630
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 1: and I say, you know this, your grandparents are your

631
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,319
Speaker 1: great grandparents. If they could hear you right now, you

632
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: are saying the exact same words that they had to

633
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 1: suffer through that they had to listen to when they

634
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: came here. And you're putting just another knife in them

635
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: by talking like this and then and then I'll say, well,

636
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:22,919
Speaker 1: by the way, so I assume you're so, you probably

637
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,359
Speaker 1: voted for Trump. Yeah, I voted for Trump. Two thirds

638
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 1: of all white men voted for Trump. So I tell people,

639
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 1: just as a precautionary measure, anytime you see three white

640
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 1: guys walking down the sidewalk, two of them voted for Trump.

641
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: You maybe moved to the other side of the street.

642
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 1: But I I said, I say to them, you know,

643
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: Catholic or Catholic, Irish Italian? Why does President Trump hate Catholics? Well,

644
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,919
Speaker 1: what do you mean he hates Catholics? I said, well,

645
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: when he refers to what he calls these ship whole countries.

646
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 1: He was talking about Central America, Haiti and two of

647
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,439
Speaker 1: these African nations where catholicis is is actually the main

648
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:05,920
Speaker 1: religion that all these children mean put in cages. Where

649
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 1: are they from? Mexico Catholic country, Guatemala Catholic country, El

650
00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 1: Salvador Catholic country. He hates these Catholics and then you

651
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: can see their ants are coming. Wait a minute, and

652
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 1: weren't looking at it like that. But see, that's why,

653
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: when you like what you said earlier, when we try

654
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: to define our group more and more narrow, you know,

655
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: we circle the wagons. I'm just all about me. I'm

656
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 1: gonna take care of me, myself and I and my family.

657
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:36,359
Speaker 1: That's it. This is when we lose. This is when

658
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 1: the country starts to fall to pieces because we don't

659
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: see ourselves as part of the greater whole. And how

660
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 1: quickly we forget, to your point, the reality of what

661
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 1: those who came before us went through, you know, it

662
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 1: shocks me. I remember the first time I was in Germany,

663
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: the memorials and the museums and and walking, you know,

664
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: just through a city square and there will be this

665
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: unbearably heart wrenching, beautiful, poignant memorial to the Holocaust, and

666
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 1: it's a reminder of what's happened on that ground. In

667
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,880
Speaker 1: those spaces, people aren't trying to pretend it didn't happen.

668
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: And yet in countries like this, you find out that

669
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,320
Speaker 1: of millennials or I guess it would be is it

670
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 1: gen Z just below, the millennials don't answer quizzes that

671
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: they don't really know anything about the Holocaust. People don't

672
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: know about they don't really know where, they haven't really

673
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: been taught what our real history is. You know, the

674
00:39:38,040 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving play in the third grade is a lie. We

675
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: haven't talked about what we did to indigenous people's we

676
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 1: haven't talked about the the real experience of people in

677
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: the Transatlantic slave trade. We ignore it. We want to

678
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:55,439
Speaker 1: pretend we didn't have any part of it. And so

679
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: we see these modern versions of oppression continuing to happen.

680
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 1: We see the way people are demonized, We see kids

681
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:06,719
Speaker 1: being put in cages. We have concentration camps in the US.

682
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: They're not death camps yet. But then you get alerted

683
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 1: to the fact that over thirty people have died in

684
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: these detention centers, and it's like, well, aren't we already

685
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: on our way? What are we doing? What are we

686
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 1: doing to these people? And how could we allow it?

687
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: We we like to say things, we like to espouse

688
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 1: these theories like never again, and we'll never forget, But

689
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: we've we seem to have forgotten. And again I worry

690
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,800
Speaker 1: that it all ties back, that you can really trace

691
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 1: or pull that thread from the education system or the

692
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: lack thereof. Right you mentioned Germany, It's a law in Germany.

693
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: Their schools have to teach the Holocaust from first grade

694
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 1: to twelfth grade. The students have to learn about it

695
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:54,839
Speaker 1: every single year. They and those memorials you talk about

696
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:58,400
Speaker 1: you everywhere around Germany. Everywhere you go, don just a

697
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: random street, there will be some reference to memorialize and

698
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: what they've done over the years. Homes that belong to

699
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:10,960
Speaker 1: Jewish families that were taken from them as they were

700
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 1: shipped away, they now put a little a tile in

701
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,839
Speaker 1: the sidewalk in front of the house. If the house

702
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: is still standing, that's says so and so used to

703
00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: live here. This was the home of the love and

704
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 1: family until they were taken away and killed in the Holocaust,

705
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:34,839
Speaker 1: And you cannot walk down that street in and not

706
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: be reminded that your people, your parents, maybe your grandparents,

707
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: did this, and that that you and we we all

708
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,319
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to make up for this. I'm sure

709
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:47,680
Speaker 1: that there are people listening who when you hear us

710
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: talk about something like this thing, But God, isn't that depressing?

711
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 1: What does that do? I actually think it's where we

712
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,760
Speaker 1: come alive. I think when we really acknowledge the truth

713
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:59,680
Speaker 1: of who we are. We look, we're human beings. We are,

714
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 1: as you said, we're a species. We're animals in a way,

715
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:05,319
Speaker 1: and we've done some incredible things as a species, and

716
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: we've done some really hideous things to each other. And

717
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: I think it's only when we acknowledge the fullness of

718
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:16,000
Speaker 1: our potential for both greatness and evil that we get

719
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: to decide who we want to be in this incarnation,

720
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: in this iteration, in this generation. We get to say,

721
00:42:22,920 --> 00:42:25,399
Speaker 1: look what happened. Who am I going to be? Now?

722
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 1: How am I going to make the opposite impact? Now?

723
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,600
Speaker 1: How am I going to carry the memory of these

724
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:34,319
Speaker 1: people and exist in my body in their honor, and

725
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: I think it can be such a beautiful motivator. I

726
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 1: think the danger comes when we refuse to acknowledge what

727
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:45,799
Speaker 1: we're capable of. On the on the dark side, we

728
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: can behave really darkly and pretend that it's good. Yeah.

729
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:51,879
Speaker 1: I think when people say that to me, I don't

730
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 1: want to get depressed. Right. Why do I have to

731
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: look at that? It's not that you have to look

732
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: at it. It's actually by looking at it, it can

733
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: actually inspire you to create a better world, to do

734
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:05,759
Speaker 1: better than the generations that came before us. Every time

735
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: you walk by that, you say to yourself, I'm picking

736
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: up the mantel here, I'm going to I'm going to

737
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 1: lead the charge for a better world. That's the other

738
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:14,840
Speaker 1: way you can choose. So to look at this. I

739
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 1: mean this whole thing about I don't want to be depressed.

740
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: I think what we're living through right now, I can't

741
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:22,920
Speaker 1: think of I can't think of getting well. It can

742
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 1: get worse. But we were going to stop that. But

743
00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: I think it's if everybody has to sort of what

744
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: was that movie with Madonna and Rosie o'donnald and Um

745
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:39,360
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks. The Baseball League then it's such a great movie.

746
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:44,440
Speaker 1: Tom Haig says, there's no crying in baseball, and I

747
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:46,839
Speaker 1: just I say that to myself all the time. You know,

748
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 1: there's no crying in politics. There's no there's no crying

749
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:52,479
Speaker 1: and stopping. And we have to end this war. There's

750
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: no crying and trying to put an end to the

751
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: climate disaster that we are part of. I mean, if

752
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: we could just talk about that for a second. I

753
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 1: just this is just on my mind lately. I met

754
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:08,279
Speaker 1: Greta Greta Tunberg a couple of months ago, and uh,

755
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: it was so moved by her, so inspired by her.

756
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 1: I'm so happy that young people now are not letting

757
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: the adults off the hook. They know the world that

758
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 1: we're leaving them. They are mad as hell at us

759
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 1: for it. They should be, and we have a responsibility

760
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,080
Speaker 1: to Uh. You know, I remember a couple of months ago.

761
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this is how you should decide to vote,

762
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: but as I said, you know, I'm friends with both

763
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and have supported them both

764
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: in the past. I saw this poll of eighteen to

765
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 1: thirty five year olds, who do you want to be

766
00:44:47,760 --> 00:44:51,479
Speaker 1: president of the United States, and the top number one

767
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:55,640
Speaker 1: that the young people wanted was the oldest person running, Bernie,

768
00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:03,319
Speaker 1: the one millennial in the race. Pete had two. So

769
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: I remember saying to somebody, I said, you know, if

770
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 1: it really all things being equal, if it comes down

771
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 1: to it for people between say having it for Bernie

772
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: or Elizabeth, I think it's my responsibility as an adult,

773
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: as an older adult. Two, I have to side with

774
00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:24,280
Speaker 1: the kids. I have decide with young adults is their future.

775
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: I am gonna probably hopefully just scoot by in the

776
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,280
Speaker 1: final you know, years of my life, and I won't

777
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:35,719
Speaker 1: see the calamity that you, Sophia and those younger than

778
00:45:35,760 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 1: you are going to see. And it is I need

779
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: to think about that. I need to think about because

780
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:43,839
Speaker 1: I think about Bernie. Why don't why do young people

781
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 1: like him because they see in him somebody who is

782
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,719
Speaker 1: completely committed to on this issue stopping it. Not for

783
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 1: his future. He has no future, no offense, Bernie. But

784
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 1: you're you're in the last quarter of the game here.

785
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:03,399
Speaker 1: But if you're twelve, wow, twenty or thirty, I think

786
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 1: the older adults should be thinking about in this election.

787
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 1: I'm not just gonna be voting for what's good for

788
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 1: me in my fifties or sixties, But what what responsibility

789
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:16,439
Speaker 1: do I have to my kids and my grandkids here?

790
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 1: And who's the candidate that is going to end? And

791
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:24,120
Speaker 1: this it's so beyond. I'm sure you've read all about

792
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:26,920
Speaker 1: where we're at. Remember they used to tell us that

793
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 1: three or people you said, tell us, if we went

794
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,840
Speaker 1: past the way in fifty parts per million of carbon

795
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: in the air, we were doomed that there'd be no

796
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: way to turn it back. And now we're at four

797
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: parts per million, so we've cast the point of no return.

798
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:43,720
Speaker 1: If you just stop and think about that for a second.

799
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 1: People say you don't want to get depressed, Well think

800
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:48,399
Speaker 1: about that for two seconds. You know who really made

801
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 1: me feel hopeful though? In terms of that, I just

802
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 1: interviewed him for the pod, and I'll be excited for

803
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: you to hear that discussion. I spoke to this incredible man, Dr.

804
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 1: Zach Bush, who was give ving us the breakdown on

805
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: what transferring our agriculture system from the way that it

806
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: works now to regenerative agriculture would look like. How it

807
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:14,440
Speaker 1: reduces costs for farmers by upwards of which means it

808
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:18,880
Speaker 1: increases their profits by upwards of and that within five

809
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:23,960
Speaker 1: years farms can become not only they can't they can

810
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:26,319
Speaker 1: not only neutralize their carbon output, they can actually start

811
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: to reverse it. And I'm sitting here going where is

812
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: the national plan for that transfer, for that for that

813
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: opportunity for us to change our food system. So I

814
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 1: agree because I really get caught in the in the

815
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: doom of climate change. And he was one of the

816
00:47:46,800 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 1: people who helped me sleep a little bit better at

817
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 1: night since we spoke. So I would just like to

818
00:47:52,560 --> 00:47:54,799
Speaker 1: offer that to you because I know that when you

819
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 1: try to close your eyes, these are the nightmares that start,

820
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 1: you know, playing. Yeah, I also believe that as a species,

821
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: we are smart enough to find our way if we

822
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: choose to sure hope. So whether it's what you just said,

823
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:11,839
Speaker 1: with this said with Dr Bush or I do believe this.

824
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: There's no way now, it's too late. There's no way

825
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:18,160
Speaker 1: now to solar panel or windmill our way out of

826
00:48:18,200 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 1: this tragedy. Right, So if you're just focusing on that

827
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:24,600
Speaker 1: and not like what you just mentioned, how we grow

828
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:27,439
Speaker 1: food and these other things that we haven't really thought about,

829
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: we should be doing at all all of it. So

830
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: I have a question because you you talked about, you know,

831
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 1: obviously your support for Bernie, your friendship with Elizabeth Warren,

832
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:38,919
Speaker 1: who I will just be clear as one of my

833
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:43,280
Speaker 1: favorite candidates in the race. I think she is just unbelievable.

834
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 1: And whether it's him or it's her or any anyone

835
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:52,760
Speaker 1: coming down the line, I appreciate the progressive nature of

836
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: the campaigns that they're running. I was lucky I helped

837
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:59,240
Speaker 1: to host a gun sense for him with every town

838
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: in Iowa actually early in the fall, and I got

839
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: to spend quite a bit of time with Senator Warren

840
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 1: and was just so inspired by our conversation in person. Unfortunately,

841
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 1: didn't really get to hang with Bernie. He was in

842
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: and out really fast because he had another thing to

843
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: go to, and I was like, I just want to

844
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 1: pick your brain about some things, but it'll happen later

845
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: to go. I gotta go, I gotta go. But he

846
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: was he was very nice in passing. But I I'm

847
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: curious when you talk about when you became involved in politics,

848
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: when you began supporting, you know, candidates for Congress and Senate.

849
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: You were eighteen years old and you were the youngest

850
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:43,280
Speaker 1: person ever elected to public office. In the state of Michigan.

851
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,279
Speaker 1: And normally I start audiences with where people begin, but

852
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: we we just really went down the rabbit hole. And

853
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 1: this is why I'm obsessed with your brain because now

854
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 1: we're quite a while into this interview and I'm realizing

855
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 1: I need to go backwards. But but in between you

856
00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: becoming this passionate sort of or d and kid journalist,

857
00:50:02,000 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: if you will, with your reel to reel, how do

858
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,440
Speaker 1: you go through school and then wind up getting elected

859
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:10,840
Speaker 1: to state office? And what did you tell the listeners

860
00:50:10,840 --> 00:50:14,960
Speaker 1: what you got elected? Tom, I'm fascinated by this story.

861
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:18,280
Speaker 1: It's like oftentimes many good things that happened in life

862
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:23,840
Speaker 1: happened by accident. And so when I was in high school,

863
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 1: you had to have your shirt tucked into your pants

864
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 1: in public school. Interesting, yes, And so now i'm you know,

865
00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: this is the seventies and it's it's time to you know,

866
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: untucked the shirts. Let's just put it that way. It's

867
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:42,799
Speaker 1: um and I my shirt wasn't tucked in this one

868
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: particular day, and the assistant principal saw me, grabbed me

869
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:49,560
Speaker 1: from behind and said come with me, brought me into

870
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: the cafeteria and in front of all the students got

871
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 1: out this piece of wood, which they called a paddle,

872
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:59,760
Speaker 1: and whacked me five times, bent me over and whacked

873
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 1: me five times on the rear end for having my

874
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:06,680
Speaker 1: shirt tail out, and all the kids laughing, and I'm

875
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 1: totally humiliated. And oh man, I remember walking home that

876
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:14,680
Speaker 1: day at plus I was sore, you know, I mean,

877
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: it was a giant hunk of wood. And um, I

878
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,640
Speaker 1: walked in the house and I pick up the daily paper.

879
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: This an that cool thing about my mom. She taught

880
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 1: me to read when I was four, before kindergarten, and

881
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:31,279
Speaker 1: she did it by starting with the newspaper, starting with

882
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: a little weather box at the top of the page

883
00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. And I was so fascinated that

884
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: I could find out what tomorrow's weather was going to

885
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:42,799
Speaker 1: be because it was there on the front page. And

886
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:44,759
Speaker 1: it was such a gift that she gave me to

887
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:47,759
Speaker 1: be So I always read the paper. And I was

888
00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:50,719
Speaker 1: bored to death through most of elementary school, because you know,

889
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:53,879
Speaker 1: that had shoved me ahead simply by being able to read,

890
00:51:54,120 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: you know, And I was bored in school for most

891
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:00,400
Speaker 1: of the time. But anyway, so I pick up the

892
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 1: paper and it says there's A headline says school board

893
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 1: president retiring um election in June, and I'm only seventeen

894
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:11,120
Speaker 1: years old. Two months earlier, eighteen year olds had just

895
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 1: been given the right to vote. The voting age in

896
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:15,960
Speaker 1: America had always been twenty one, and they had lowered

897
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 1: it to eighteen for the first time. I'm seventeen, and

898
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:23,240
Speaker 1: I'm thinking the elections in June. Well, my birthdays in April,

899
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: I'll be eighteen. I wonder. I know I can vote,

900
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:28,319
Speaker 1: but can I Could I run? I called up the

901
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 1: city clerk. I said, yeah, hi, I'm I was just

902
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: wondering how old you have to be to run for

903
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:38,400
Speaker 1: the board of education. Uh. She goes just just a minute.

904
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:46,839
Speaker 1: She comes back, she goes eighteen, whoa, whoah and uh.

905
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 1: But then I'm thinking, oh my god, how how do

906
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 1: I get on the ballot. It must be expensive. I

907
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:54,840
Speaker 1: must I might have to get ten thousand signatures. Oh

908
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:57,279
Speaker 1: what do I have to do to uh to get

909
00:52:57,320 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 1: on the ballot. She's reading the rules and I can

910
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:03,799
Speaker 1: hear rifling through the papers. Uh. It says here, all

911
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:07,719
Speaker 1: you have to be is eighteen and have twenty signatures

912
00:53:07,760 --> 00:53:14,120
Speaker 1: on a petition of voters. Twenty I mean I knew

913
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:16,359
Speaker 1: twenty stoners who would sign anything I put in front

914
00:53:16,400 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: of them. You know, I would just just like that's it.

915
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: And so I did. I want to get the petition,

916
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 1: and I got twenty names on it, and I submitted it,

917
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:29,640
Speaker 1: and I submitted my my essentially my platform, and in

918
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 1: addition to all the things I wanted to do educationally

919
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:34,799
Speaker 1: to make the schools better, the final thing was I

920
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 1: will fire the assistant principal and the principle of the

921
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 1: high school should I get elected. Oh my god, that

922
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:47,240
Speaker 1: created such a ship storm, the stories about in the paper.

923
00:53:47,560 --> 00:53:50,600
Speaker 1: You know, I kind of long eash hair, not Montreal longash,

924
00:53:50,680 --> 00:53:54,759
Speaker 1: but you know, for Michigan, long enough. And uh and

925
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:58,480
Speaker 1: I uh all the adults, the adults were so furious

926
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 1: that I was running and saying this that seven other

927
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:04,919
Speaker 1: adults took out petitions to also run because they're gonna

928
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:08,799
Speaker 1: stop me, not stopping to think that they are going

929
00:54:08,840 --> 00:54:14,000
Speaker 1: to split up the older adult vote, the seven of them.

930
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:17,359
Speaker 1: And so so when I on election night, when they

931
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: announced the results, I come in first place, I win,

932
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 1: and they split up. They split up all the rest

933
00:54:23,600 --> 00:54:26,640
Speaker 1: of the the votes. So I so all of a sudden,

934
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: I'm on I'm on the Board of Education, and they

935
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do with me. But enough people

936
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:33,759
Speaker 1: have been through that high school with that principle and

937
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:36,680
Speaker 1: natsis of principle where it was like I was not

938
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:40,720
Speaker 1: alone in this feeling that something was not right. And

939
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:43,520
Speaker 1: within a year, all I needed was three other votes.

940
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:45,239
Speaker 1: There are seven votes on the Board of Education. I

941
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: just needed three other votes. And I got those three votes,

942
00:54:48,800 --> 00:54:51,959
Speaker 1: and we removed the principal and the assistant principle. Every

943
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,640
Speaker 1: student's dream, you know, come true, that you would actually

944
00:54:54,719 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 1: hold that power in your hands. I was still eighteen

945
00:54:57,239 --> 00:55:00,080
Speaker 1: years old when this happened, and they were gone, and

946
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:04,280
Speaker 1: and right away, Sophia, I realized a dangerous, dangerous lesson

947
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 1: had been taught to me, that you actually can make

948
00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 1: change happen by doing very very little pony signatures on

949
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: a petition, show up to a meeting once a month,

950
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 1: to the Board of education. There wasn't really a whole

951
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,319
Speaker 1: lot to it. I just decided to do it. I

952
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:24,640
Speaker 1: did it. It happened, and I can't tell you how

953
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:26,840
Speaker 1: many times that we've seen him in just the last decade.

954
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:29,480
Speaker 1: I never thought I would see an African American president

955
00:55:29,520 --> 00:55:33,719
Speaker 1: United States boom. It happened after the OH four elections

956
00:55:33,719 --> 00:55:38,160
Speaker 1: when fourteen states, including Michigan and Ohio, made it illegal

957
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:41,000
Speaker 1: to marry the person you're in love with, should they

958
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: be of your gender. That was put in the constitution

959
00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:48,319
Speaker 1: of fourteen states in oh four, not ten years later.

960
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:53,400
Speaker 1: Ten years later, it's gone. It's legal. Are the Republican

961
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:58,080
Speaker 1: Chief Justice a Republican court says this is wrong that

962
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: you can't marry who you're in love with. It was

963
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:03,879
Speaker 1: about the human lesson at that early age that just

964
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: by doing and never allowing the thought to enter my

965
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:09,920
Speaker 1: head like I have no right as an eighteen year

966
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:12,600
Speaker 1: old to be on elected the public office. But I

967
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:15,040
Speaker 1: became the first eighteen year old elected to any public

968
00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:17,440
Speaker 1: office in the state uh that year and then the

969
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: next year there were a number of eighteen year olds

970
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 1: that ran, and a couple of actually are a member

971
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 1: of Congress from Flint. He was one of the people.

972
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:28,480
Speaker 1: He ran as a nineteen year old for the Flint

973
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 1: Board of Education. Was a friend of mine. I ran

974
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 1: his campaign. He's now in Congress representing Flint, Michigan. So

975
00:56:37,040 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: there you go. But when you look at the great

976
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: at Thundbergh's and the m. A. Gonzalez Is and and

977
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:45,000
Speaker 1: and the David Hoggs. Why not you know, the young

978
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: people will win. They are they are not bogged down

979
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:53,840
Speaker 1: by being jaded or having some sort of expectation of

980
00:56:53,880 --> 00:56:56,520
Speaker 1: how the system is. They know what they wanted to

981
00:56:56,560 --> 00:57:00,320
Speaker 1: look like. And so I think it's incredible. I interviewed

982
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 1: Senator Gillibrandon. She said, well, you have to run for office,

983
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:05,759
Speaker 1: I don't you know, maybe like eventually, like remember when

984
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 1: I'm fifty, And I'm like, you know that that could

985
00:57:08,120 --> 00:57:09,719
Speaker 1: be a time. And she just looked at me and

986
00:57:09,719 --> 00:57:12,880
Speaker 1: said no. Now. I was like, lady, give me a minute.

987
00:57:13,320 --> 00:57:16,280
Speaker 1: But it's interesting because we all have such a natural

988
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:18,520
Speaker 1: inclination to think, well, I couldn't possibly be ready for

989
00:57:18,560 --> 00:57:23,360
Speaker 1: that yet. And and AOC said, if if it's not me,

990
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 1: if I'm not going to fix it, who's going to

991
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:28,560
Speaker 1: fix it? And it's it's really a reminder that's right.

992
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: And I believe and a lot of people your age

993
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:34,439
Speaker 1: and younger I think would do a better job, would

994
00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 1: certainly have their head and their heart in the right place.

995
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:40,880
Speaker 1: And I'd rather take that risk. I'd rather go with

996
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: where your head is at than the other way. And

997
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 1: I wish more young people would run for office. It's

998
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:48,960
Speaker 1: so easy. In fact, one of the things I'm going

999
00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 1: to do on my podcast is somewhere in the next

1000
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,800
Speaker 1: few months, I'm going to require, if you're a subscriber

1001
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 1: to my podcast, that you have to run for office

1002
00:58:03,520 --> 00:58:04,920
Speaker 1: for all. The first thing you're probably thinking is, well,

1003
00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:07,200
Speaker 1: wait a minute, there's not that many offices. But the

1004
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,400
Speaker 1: truth is is that there is this thing called precinct delegates,

1005
00:58:11,200 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 1: and in every neighborhood, every polling, wherever you go to vote,

1006
00:58:14,960 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 1: you've probably seen it on the ballots. Usually the last

1007
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:20,280
Speaker 1: thing where you get to elect the delegates that you

1008
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:24,640
Speaker 1: want to go to the county convention for the Democratic

1009
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 1: or Republican party, and and then at the county convention

1010
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: they elect the ones who go to the state convention,

1011
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:32,000
Speaker 1: and sometimes depending on the state, they're the ones who

1012
00:58:32,040 --> 00:58:35,240
Speaker 1: decide who's running for attorney General, who's running for Secretary

1013
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 1: of State, who's running for the University of Michigan Board

1014
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 1: of Regions, and so everybody that it's usually blank too.

1015
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 1: If you look at the ballot, it's a lot of

1016
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:47,640
Speaker 1: people aren't voting on these precinct delegates. They're just they're

1017
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:50,920
Speaker 1: just empty. And so then the party leadership gets to

1018
00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:53,720
Speaker 1: a point and then it just becomes the same, you know,

1019
00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:57,720
Speaker 1: revolving door. But every next you should think about next

1020
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:01,560
Speaker 1: year wherever you live, of running for precinct delegate in

1021
00:59:01,600 --> 00:59:04,880
Speaker 1: your neighborhood. You literally, I don't think this is where

1022
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:08,360
Speaker 1: you only need ten signatures on a ballot. It's very low.

1023
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: And get your name on that ballot. Let people see

1024
00:59:12,080 --> 00:59:14,520
Speaker 1: your name there and then and all you gotta do

1025
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:17,440
Speaker 1: is go once a year to the county convention. And

1026
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:19,439
Speaker 1: if you're elected to go to the state convention, that's

1027
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 1: once a year. That's it. Sophia Bush living in or

1028
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 1: where you you live, somewhere in southern California, Los Angeles. Yeah, yes,

1029
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:33,480
Speaker 1: don't don't tell us the neighborhood please just times um.

1030
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:37,200
Speaker 1: But but you literally could be one of the three

1031
00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 1: precinct delegates for your neighborhood and all you have to

1032
00:59:40,480 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 1: do is commit one Saturday morning a year to your

1033
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: elected job as precinct delegate. Sophia Bush. So you're eighteen

1034
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:51,800
Speaker 1: and you're and you're running the school board. Yes, and

1035
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:55,520
Speaker 1: then you founded a weekly magazine which was originally called

1036
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:58,800
Speaker 1: The Flint Voice, when did you do that and what

1037
00:59:58,800 --> 01:00:01,560
Speaker 1: were you covering? And where did that idea come from?

1038
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:04,720
Speaker 1: I because I had learned to read the paper and

1039
01:00:04,920 --> 01:00:07,760
Speaker 1: was a newspaper reader from the time I was a child,

1040
01:00:08,800 --> 01:00:11,000
Speaker 1: It became clear to me, as when I became a teenager,

1041
01:00:11,000 --> 01:00:12,520
Speaker 1: that boy, they're leaving a lot of stuff out of

1042
01:00:12,520 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 1: the paper. There there's a lot of things here that

1043
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:20,120
Speaker 1: we're not hearing anything about. And frankly, because we lived

1044
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 1: so close to Canada, we listened to Canadian radio. We

1045
01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:28,880
Speaker 1: watched the Canadian news every night, and especially like during

1046
01:00:28,880 --> 01:00:31,920
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War, when our country, our government was not

1047
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 1: telling us the truth about Vietnam, the Canadians, who refused

1048
01:00:36,040 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 1: to send troops to Vietnam, told the truth every night.

1049
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:42,480
Speaker 1: And we if you lived in Detroit, if you lived

1050
01:00:42,480 --> 01:00:47,320
Speaker 1: in a border city like Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle, not really

1051
01:00:47,360 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 1: the border, but close enough where you can pick up

1052
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:52,920
Speaker 1: the signal, boy you've got a whole different newscast. And

1053
01:00:53,600 --> 01:00:56,120
Speaker 1: isn't that fascinating? So this gave me the idea to

1054
01:00:56,760 --> 01:01:02,200
Speaker 1: start my own newspaper because I was aware often that

1055
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: there was another side, or two more sides, or three

1056
01:01:05,080 --> 01:01:08,320
Speaker 1: sides to the story, and I thought the local paper

1057
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:12,080
Speaker 1: and Flint, which was very much a Republican pro General

1058
01:01:12,120 --> 01:01:18,040
Speaker 1: motors paper, pro Vietnam War paper, pro Richard Nixon paper,

1059
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 1: that we needed a different voice, and so why don't

1060
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:23,320
Speaker 1: we call it the voice. We'll call it the Flint Voice.

1061
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:27,200
Speaker 1: And for ten years we put out really this sort

1062
01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 1: of award winning newspaper of us most of us. I

1063
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:34,800
Speaker 1: have a high school degree, that's all I have. I

1064
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 1: don't have a college. I dropped out the first semester

1065
01:01:37,360 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 1: of my sophomore year. I think most of the people

1066
01:01:39,560 --> 01:01:41,880
Speaker 1: work in the paper had not gone to college. You know,

1067
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 1: we're working class kids. Our parents worked in the factories.

1068
01:01:45,800 --> 01:01:48,800
Speaker 1: My mom was a secretary or clerk, even though she

1069
01:01:48,880 --> 01:01:51,760
Speaker 1: was valedictorian of her high school class, number one in

1070
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:56,280
Speaker 1: her class. As a woman in that era, the she

1071
01:01:56,360 --> 01:01:59,800
Speaker 1: wanted to work, she had to type. She had type

1072
01:01:59,840 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 1: for the people. I had to know how to do that.

1073
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: It's very sad. Well when you think about this, of

1074
01:02:04,480 --> 01:02:09,000
Speaker 1: all the women, all the women, all the genius that

1075
01:02:09,040 --> 01:02:12,320
Speaker 1: we missed out on. Who which woman had the cure

1076
01:02:12,360 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 1: for cancer? Which woman had had the next great invention

1077
01:02:16,040 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 1: to make our lives better? Uh? Which woman that could

1078
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 1: have run for office that would have that would have

1079
01:02:22,360 --> 01:02:27,440
Speaker 1: been kinder to the have nots in our society. This

1080
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:30,840
Speaker 1: too bothered me as a child seeing this and bothered me,

1081
01:02:31,280 --> 01:02:33,600
Speaker 1: you know, being raised Catholic and the Catholic Church and

1082
01:02:33,880 --> 01:02:37,200
Speaker 1: not understanding why women had no say that they were

1083
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:41,840
Speaker 1: second class citizens in this institution. And I know, I

1084
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 1: don't want to make a sound like as a kid

1085
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:46,280
Speaker 1: or a teenager, I was like obsessed with all these

1086
01:02:46,360 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 1: dark Uh why is the world such an awful place? Thoughts?

1087
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:52,760
Speaker 1: I was like every other kid, and and you know,

1088
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:55,600
Speaker 1: I played sports, and I was in the boy Scouts,

1089
01:02:55,640 --> 01:02:58,960
Speaker 1: and and I had two sisters. I always I've often

1090
01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 1: thought this too. I've I've only lived my entire life

1091
01:03:01,920 --> 01:03:07,400
Speaker 1: in male minority households, meaning the men are always have

1092
01:03:07,560 --> 01:03:10,160
Speaker 1: the lowest numbers. Whether it was when I was growing up,

1093
01:03:10,160 --> 01:03:15,240
Speaker 1: I only had sisters, no brothers, got married daughter, no son.

1094
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:19,080
Speaker 1: But I actually, again am grateful for this gift, even

1095
01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:21,600
Speaker 1: though as a kid it might have been annoying at

1096
01:03:21,640 --> 01:03:26,200
Speaker 1: times to have only these girls and all their their

1097
01:03:26,280 --> 01:03:32,520
Speaker 1: girls girlfriends all were because girls. But but it really

1098
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:37,360
Speaker 1: was a gift because my mom and my sisters and

1099
01:03:37,400 --> 01:03:40,200
Speaker 1: the women that I've lived with in my life where

1100
01:03:40,840 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 1: it's been good for me to to sort of shut

1101
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:47,080
Speaker 1: the funk up to listen. And what a gift also

1102
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:51,360
Speaker 1: to be because the world, if we think about it,

1103
01:03:51,400 --> 01:03:53,680
Speaker 1: like the analogy of scales, right, the scales are always

1104
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 1: tipped for men in the world, and especially the generation

1105
01:03:58,280 --> 01:04:00,280
Speaker 1: in which you were a child, and you talked about

1106
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:02,960
Speaker 1: how your mom was forced to be a secretary, and

1107
01:04:02,960 --> 01:04:05,200
Speaker 1: and maybe a secretary had the cure for cancer, but

1108
01:04:05,240 --> 01:04:08,720
Speaker 1: no one would listen to her. Uh. You being in

1109
01:04:08,720 --> 01:04:11,600
Speaker 1: a household where the scales tipped in the other direction

1110
01:04:12,040 --> 01:04:17,080
Speaker 1: simply because of representation, enabled you to see your mom's struggle,

1111
01:04:17,560 --> 01:04:19,800
Speaker 1: enabled you to see the way your sisters were treated

1112
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:22,880
Speaker 1: differently than you were, and and whether or not you

1113
01:04:22,920 --> 01:04:26,560
Speaker 1: were fully cognizant of it. That's an illuminating experience to

1114
01:04:26,640 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 1: have and and for all of us. I think it's

1115
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:32,720
Speaker 1: so important to open our eyes to the way that

1116
01:04:32,880 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 1: some people are held back and others or not, that

1117
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:39,800
Speaker 1: that should be a learning opportunity for all of us.

1118
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:44,400
Speaker 1: Well it was for me. And and if you have

1119
01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:47,520
Speaker 1: just the basic sense of fairness, forget for you know

1120
01:04:47,680 --> 01:04:50,400
Speaker 1: at that age I'm not elevated enough, am I thinking

1121
01:04:50,440 --> 01:04:54,040
Speaker 1: to have, you know, feminist theory going on in my head.

1122
01:04:54,560 --> 01:04:57,680
Speaker 1: But I do know right and wrong, and I do

1123
01:04:57,800 --> 01:05:01,440
Speaker 1: know what's fair and unfair. And it's evened unfair that

1124
01:05:01,520 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 1: my sisters were relegated to a certain group at school

1125
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 1: and the boys got to do this or that or whatever.

1126
01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:09,640
Speaker 1: So I started to go against this. First of all,

1127
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:13,800
Speaker 1: my mom made me do the housework, so I had

1128
01:05:13,840 --> 01:05:16,120
Speaker 1: to do it. Wasn't just my sisters doing it. I

1129
01:05:16,160 --> 01:05:18,360
Speaker 1: had to do it too. And then when I went

1130
01:05:18,360 --> 01:05:22,000
Speaker 1: into high school, they're asking what classes I wanted. And

1131
01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:25,040
Speaker 1: my dad had learned to type when he was in

1132
01:05:25,040 --> 01:05:29,400
Speaker 1: the Marines, and he became quite a good typist. And

1133
01:05:29,600 --> 01:05:31,760
Speaker 1: I said I wanted to take typing class, and the

1134
01:05:31,960 --> 01:05:36,880
Speaker 1: school counselor said, well, it's mostly just girls in there. Now.

1135
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:41,760
Speaker 1: First of all, uh, what's wrong with that on any level? Right?

1136
01:05:42,120 --> 01:05:44,640
Speaker 1: But I think he was trying to say to me,

1137
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:47,200
Speaker 1: you don't want to be seen in a certain way.

1138
01:05:47,760 --> 01:05:50,200
Speaker 1: You're taking the girly classes. And I said to him,

1139
01:05:50,200 --> 01:05:52,120
Speaker 1: sign me up. And so I went in there and

1140
01:05:52,160 --> 01:05:54,560
Speaker 1: I was one of two boys in the typing class.

1141
01:05:55,280 --> 01:06:00,400
Speaker 1: And to this day, boomers my age, I don't know

1142
01:06:00,400 --> 01:06:03,160
Speaker 1: how to type. Still peck away with one finger, and

1143
01:06:03,200 --> 01:06:06,880
Speaker 1: I'm doing I'm doing forty words a minute, and all

1144
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:10,200
Speaker 1: because I didn't care what anybody thought that I was

1145
01:06:10,240 --> 01:06:13,520
Speaker 1: in the girls class learning to type. I thought my

1146
01:06:13,560 --> 01:06:16,880
Speaker 1: life would be better, actually if I learned to type.

1147
01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:19,360
Speaker 1: And and again I didn't think this out in advance.

1148
01:06:19,400 --> 01:06:21,480
Speaker 1: I don't give me any real big credit for this,

1149
01:06:21,960 --> 01:06:25,840
Speaker 1: But if you're sitting for two years in a class

1150
01:06:25,960 --> 01:06:29,640
Speaker 1: where there's thirty girls and two boys, you have no

1151
01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:32,240
Speaker 1: choice but to listen to what the girls are thinking.

1152
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:34,400
Speaker 1: And it's in a room like that where they don't

1153
01:06:34,440 --> 01:06:36,000
Speaker 1: have to worry about what the boys are going to

1154
01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 1: think of them, or whether they're whether they're taught to

1155
01:06:38,040 --> 01:06:41,400
Speaker 1: worry about the boys. So they're talking honestly amongst themselves.

1156
01:06:41,600 --> 01:06:44,720
Speaker 1: And I'm typing away, going whoa, whoa. I had no

1157
01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:48,920
Speaker 1: idea you're listening to this, And it was such an education,

1158
01:06:49,400 --> 01:06:51,440
Speaker 1: and I learned that this was best if I just

1159
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:54,440
Speaker 1: said nothing, kept typing, but kept my ears open. And

1160
01:06:54,480 --> 01:06:57,000
Speaker 1: I think I've benefited from that, you know, through the

1161
01:06:57,040 --> 01:07:12,920
Speaker 1: rest of my life. That's so cool. So you're learning

1162
01:07:12,960 --> 01:07:15,480
Speaker 1: these things in high school, you become an elected of

1163
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:20,160
Speaker 1: visual you start a newspaper and then you make your

1164
01:07:20,200 --> 01:07:24,360
Speaker 1: first documentary. Roger and Me came out in what was

1165
01:07:24,400 --> 01:07:28,240
Speaker 1: the transition into being a filmmaker like and what prompted

1166
01:07:28,280 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: you to make that film first? Well, okay, as I stated,

1167
01:07:32,120 --> 01:07:34,120
Speaker 1: I only have a high school education, so clearly I

1168
01:07:34,160 --> 01:07:36,360
Speaker 1: did not go to film school. I did not know

1169
01:07:36,400 --> 01:07:39,760
Speaker 1: how to do this work. I thought I could make

1170
01:07:39,760 --> 01:07:43,640
Speaker 1: a film. Honestly, God, this is I'm either I was

1171
01:07:43,680 --> 01:07:46,440
Speaker 1: crazy or I was so full of whatever I was

1172
01:07:46,480 --> 01:07:49,760
Speaker 1: about myself, but I thought to myself, I want to

1173
01:07:49,800 --> 01:07:51,880
Speaker 1: make this movie. And then the voice comes in right

1174
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:55,280
Speaker 1: away and says, you know nothing about making a movie,

1175
01:07:55,360 --> 01:08:00,959
Speaker 1: don't even attempt that. But then my real voice says back, well,

1176
01:08:02,080 --> 01:08:05,120
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of movies. I would go to

1177
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:07,520
Speaker 1: three movies a week. I mean, I was a movie nut.

1178
01:08:08,000 --> 01:08:10,400
Speaker 1: I went to everything. And as soon as I had

1179
01:08:10,400 --> 01:08:12,800
Speaker 1: a driver's license at sixteen, I drive d ann Arbor

1180
01:08:13,040 --> 01:08:16,000
Speaker 1: where they have this wonderful University of Michigan campus and

1181
01:08:16,040 --> 01:08:19,839
Speaker 1: they had seven film societies where they showed everything every

1182
01:08:19,920 --> 01:08:24,679
Speaker 1: night of the week, foreign films, documentaries, indie films, avant

1183
01:08:24,720 --> 01:08:28,240
Speaker 1: garde films, and I drive forty five minutes to Ann arbor,

1184
01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:32,519
Speaker 1: just so I could watch these movies. Yet I never

1185
01:08:32,920 --> 01:08:36,080
Speaker 1: I was doing my newspaper. Eventually I took a job.

1186
01:08:36,640 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: I was offered a job in San Francisco to be

1187
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:41,880
Speaker 1: the editor. They'd seen my paper in Michigan, to be

1188
01:08:41,920 --> 01:08:44,920
Speaker 1: the editor of a national magazine. I was so excited.

1189
01:08:45,720 --> 01:08:48,519
Speaker 1: I took the job, and I only lasted four months.

1190
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:53,480
Speaker 1: I was let go ironically on Labor Day, and um

1191
01:08:53,520 --> 01:08:55,479
Speaker 1: I had done some things that upset the owner of

1192
01:08:55,479 --> 01:08:58,479
Speaker 1: the magazine. He had given a column to an auto

1193
01:08:58,479 --> 01:09:02,599
Speaker 1: worker who on the assembly line, and I thought their

1194
01:09:02,720 --> 01:09:06,400
Speaker 1: voice has never heard assembly line factory workers. So I

1195
01:09:06,400 --> 01:09:09,759
Speaker 1: gave him a column in the magazine. I was taking

1196
01:09:09,760 --> 01:09:12,320
Speaker 1: a sort of a working class approach to the magazine,

1197
01:09:12,560 --> 01:09:14,360
Speaker 1: but it was based in San Francisco, and it was

1198
01:09:14,400 --> 01:09:18,240
Speaker 1: a very kind of kind of liberal, you know, a good,

1199
01:09:18,439 --> 01:09:22,240
Speaker 1: good magazine dig good things. But you know, my uncle

1200
01:09:22,320 --> 01:09:24,840
Speaker 1: was in the sitdown strike that founded the United Auto Workers,

1201
01:09:25,479 --> 01:09:27,760
Speaker 1: that took over the factories and flent for forty four

1202
01:09:27,840 --> 01:09:30,840
Speaker 1: days in the middle of winter and locked management out

1203
01:09:30,840 --> 01:09:32,760
Speaker 1: of the factories and wouldn't let them in until they

1204
01:09:32,800 --> 01:09:35,879
Speaker 1: gave him a union contract. That founded really the UAW.

1205
01:09:36,800 --> 01:09:39,280
Speaker 1: And it's yeah, but this is what I was raised in.

1206
01:09:39,960 --> 01:09:43,320
Speaker 1: So but the third thing that happened in the week

1207
01:09:43,400 --> 01:09:48,160
Speaker 1: before Labor Day is the women on the staff of

1208
01:09:48,200 --> 01:09:51,240
Speaker 1: the magazine walked into my office. I'm in the new

1209
01:09:51,360 --> 01:09:54,479
Speaker 1: editor there, and they shut the door. They said we

1210
01:09:54,520 --> 01:09:59,320
Speaker 1: need to talk. I said, okay. They said, uh, we're

1211
01:09:59,320 --> 01:10:03,880
Speaker 1: gonna walk out. We're gonna walk off the job. The

1212
01:10:03,920 --> 01:10:08,519
Speaker 1: publisher of this magazine has been hitting on us, sexually,

1213
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:11,320
Speaker 1: harassing us. I don't even know if in ninet, this

1214
01:10:11,360 --> 01:10:16,080
Speaker 1: was six, if that was even a term then, but

1215
01:10:16,360 --> 01:10:20,320
Speaker 1: they basically conveyed to me, what again, if you're listening

1216
01:10:20,360 --> 01:10:22,880
Speaker 1: at all anywhere, even back and when there wasn't a

1217
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:25,400
Speaker 1: term for it, you knew how women were being treated

1218
01:10:25,400 --> 01:10:28,800
Speaker 1: in the office, and as a man, you learned to

1219
01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:31,160
Speaker 1: just look the other way, best not to get involved,

1220
01:10:31,240 --> 01:10:34,160
Speaker 1: don't get any trouble. And they came in, they said

1221
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:35,960
Speaker 1: they were gonna walk and I said, no, no, hold on,

1222
01:10:36,360 --> 01:10:38,599
Speaker 1: I do nothing of this. I'm just I've been here

1223
01:10:38,600 --> 01:10:40,880
Speaker 1: a month or two. Let me go talk to the

1224
01:10:40,880 --> 01:10:43,760
Speaker 1: owner of the magazine, and they gave me the whole

1225
01:10:43,800 --> 01:10:47,120
Speaker 1: list of grievances. I went over to his house and

1226
01:10:47,160 --> 01:10:50,800
Speaker 1: I told him what they had told me, and he's

1227
01:10:50,880 --> 01:10:53,479
Speaker 1: cut me off, and he said, why are you listening

1228
01:10:53,479 --> 01:10:56,080
Speaker 1: to these women? I said, well, they came into me too.

1229
01:10:56,280 --> 01:11:01,200
Speaker 1: They're upset and being treated. They're gonna leave, They're gonna like, listen,

1230
01:11:02,120 --> 01:11:07,559
Speaker 1: I've heard all this before, and the publisher I've arranged it.

1231
01:11:07,640 --> 01:11:11,559
Speaker 1: He's getting help whatever that meant. But he's still there

1232
01:11:11,600 --> 01:11:16,240
Speaker 1: every day on the job. And it wasn't three or

1233
01:11:16,280 --> 01:11:19,240
Speaker 1: four days later that I was fired. And when the

1234
01:11:19,240 --> 01:11:24,280
Speaker 1: owner fired me, he brought these things up that I

1235
01:11:24,320 --> 01:11:28,320
Speaker 1: was going to so some sort of division within the staff.

1236
01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:30,800
Speaker 1: By siding with the women on this, I said, I

1237
01:11:30,840 --> 01:11:34,080
Speaker 1: wasn't siding. It's I side on the side of people

1238
01:11:34,080 --> 01:11:38,439
Speaker 1: should be treated right, and I think of two sides

1239
01:11:38,479 --> 01:11:42,559
Speaker 1: on these issues. There's no two sides. There's no two sides.

1240
01:11:43,240 --> 01:11:45,400
Speaker 1: And this is why people say to me, Mike, you're

1241
01:11:45,439 --> 01:11:48,400
Speaker 1: you're polarizing. I go, yeah, that's right. I'm proud of it.

1242
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:51,080
Speaker 1: I there's no two sides to whether women should be

1243
01:11:51,080 --> 01:11:54,439
Speaker 1: paid the same as men. There's no compromise position, there's

1244
01:11:54,479 --> 01:11:59,040
Speaker 1: no middle ground, there's no compromise position. If you say

1245
01:11:59,080 --> 01:12:04,439
Speaker 1: that a fertili egg is a human being, there's no

1246
01:12:04,479 --> 01:12:06,479
Speaker 1: halfway about that. You either believe that or you don't.

1247
01:12:06,720 --> 01:12:09,080
Speaker 1: There's no way to get into the control. We can't.

1248
01:12:09,080 --> 01:12:12,320
Speaker 1: We just find a middle ground. No. Actually, if you

1249
01:12:12,360 --> 01:12:14,800
Speaker 1: believe that, if that's your religious belief or whatever, fine,

1250
01:12:15,120 --> 01:12:17,840
Speaker 1: I have the science on my side. The seed is

1251
01:12:17,880 --> 01:12:21,000
Speaker 1: a seed, not a flower. A stem is a stem

1252
01:12:21,120 --> 01:12:23,639
Speaker 1: not a flower. A flower is a flower when it's

1253
01:12:23,640 --> 01:12:28,160
Speaker 1: a flower. And I've had these arguments forever, and I

1254
01:12:28,240 --> 01:12:31,160
Speaker 1: have the hardest time because I'm just like, there's no

1255
01:12:31,280 --> 01:12:34,400
Speaker 1: side here. Twenty women come in the office and they

1256
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:38,160
Speaker 1: say they're being abused, and nobody does anything about it.

1257
01:12:39,160 --> 01:12:41,679
Speaker 1: And I lose my job as one of the three

1258
01:12:41,880 --> 01:12:45,439
Speaker 1: reasons I was given for losing my job, so I

1259
01:12:45,479 --> 01:12:48,679
Speaker 1: was unemployed. I was getting ninety eight dollars a week

1260
01:12:48,720 --> 01:12:53,840
Speaker 1: from the welfare unemployment office in Michigan. And I'm really

1261
01:12:54,680 --> 01:12:57,160
Speaker 1: pretty low and I'm laying in bed most of the

1262
01:12:57,240 --> 01:13:01,439
Speaker 1: day or laying on the couch. And the news comes

1263
01:13:01,439 --> 01:13:04,000
Speaker 1: on and it says that Roger Smith, the chairman of

1264
01:13:04,000 --> 01:13:07,479
Speaker 1: General Motors, is going to lay off another thirty thousand workers,

1265
01:13:07,720 --> 01:13:11,120
Speaker 1: ten thousand of them in Flint. Ten thousand. Flint's not

1266
01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:13,920
Speaker 1: a huge city. That's a lot of people, A lot

1267
01:13:14,040 --> 01:13:16,360
Speaker 1: of families are gonna be ruined. And I set up

1268
01:13:16,400 --> 01:13:20,639
Speaker 1: on the couch and the start instantly came to my head.

1269
01:13:21,400 --> 01:13:24,840
Speaker 1: I've got to make a movie about this. And I'm like,

1270
01:13:25,160 --> 01:13:26,920
Speaker 1: I have no idea how to make a movie. But

1271
01:13:26,960 --> 01:13:30,000
Speaker 1: I figured I could learn. And I had a group

1272
01:13:30,000 --> 01:13:32,240
Speaker 1: from New York, a documentary group had come to Flint

1273
01:13:32,280 --> 01:13:35,800
Speaker 1: the year before, and they asked me, because I had

1274
01:13:35,800 --> 01:13:38,360
Speaker 1: my newspaper, if they could go through the archives. They

1275
01:13:38,400 --> 01:13:42,400
Speaker 1: were doing a film on something and what I helped them,

1276
01:13:42,439 --> 01:13:44,000
Speaker 1: and I did, and I went and I was like

1277
01:13:44,000 --> 01:13:46,840
Speaker 1: a p a on their set. And you know, even I,

1278
01:13:46,840 --> 01:13:48,559
Speaker 1: as the editor of my paper, I wanted to I

1279
01:13:48,600 --> 01:13:51,120
Speaker 1: just wanted to see how movies are made. And so

1280
01:13:51,200 --> 01:13:53,080
Speaker 1: when I was fired and I had the idea to

1281
01:13:53,120 --> 01:13:55,439
Speaker 1: make this movie about Flint and general motors, a movie

1282
01:13:55,479 --> 01:13:59,920
Speaker 1: that became Roger and Me. I called up the documentary

1283
01:14:00,280 --> 01:14:03,479
Speaker 1: director and his producer in New York. I said, I

1284
01:14:03,520 --> 01:14:05,960
Speaker 1: want to make a movie. Can I come there? Can

1285
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:07,800
Speaker 1: you show me how to load the film in the

1286
01:14:07,840 --> 01:14:10,479
Speaker 1: camera and all this? And he said, well, you were

1287
01:14:10,520 --> 01:14:12,559
Speaker 1: so helpful to us, I'll do you one better. We'll

1288
01:14:12,560 --> 01:14:14,479
Speaker 1: come to Flint. We'll come to Flint. We'll come back

1289
01:14:14,520 --> 01:14:16,719
Speaker 1: there for a few days right now, and we'll show

1290
01:14:16,720 --> 01:14:19,280
Speaker 1: you how to operate the camera and the sound machine

1291
01:14:19,360 --> 01:14:22,479
Speaker 1: and and everything. And they did. They came to Flint

1292
01:14:23,160 --> 01:14:27,800
Speaker 1: for nothing to teach me how to do this. It

1293
01:14:27,840 --> 01:14:30,439
Speaker 1: was so it was such a gift. And and so

1294
01:14:30,479 --> 01:14:34,200
Speaker 1: I just started learning, mostly learning through failure. Another thing

1295
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:36,320
Speaker 1: gift that my parents gave me. They never thought failure

1296
01:14:36,400 --> 01:14:39,080
Speaker 1: was a bad thing. If I got bad grades and something.

1297
01:14:39,439 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 1: It was just like, well, they just want to learn.

1298
01:14:41,439 --> 01:14:43,519
Speaker 1: They wanted to know what did I learned from making

1299
01:14:43,520 --> 01:14:46,400
Speaker 1: all those mistakes in that class, Because that's what making

1300
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:48,960
Speaker 1: a mistake is. That's how we learn. When we're little kids.

1301
01:14:49,400 --> 01:14:50,920
Speaker 1: You try to ride a bike, you fall off it,

1302
01:14:51,000 --> 01:14:52,840
Speaker 1: you get back on, you ride again, you fall off it,

1303
01:14:52,880 --> 01:14:56,400
Speaker 1: you get back on. Finally you're riding the bike. When Sophia,

1304
01:14:56,439 --> 01:14:58,160
Speaker 1: when you and I were born, we couldn't speak a

1305
01:14:58,200 --> 01:15:01,479
Speaker 1: word of English. If we were we're in this country, right,

1306
01:15:01,800 --> 01:15:03,479
Speaker 1: how did we How did we learn how to talk?

1307
01:15:03,520 --> 01:15:05,439
Speaker 1: By the time we went to kindergarten, we didn't have

1308
01:15:05,439 --> 01:15:08,800
Speaker 1: any textbooks, we didn't have any foreign language. Class. We

1309
01:15:08,920 --> 01:15:11,960
Speaker 1: always started out with was Google, Gaga and mama, dad, dad,

1310
01:15:12,600 --> 01:15:15,120
Speaker 1: How did how did we? How did we? And here's

1311
01:15:15,160 --> 01:15:17,559
Speaker 1: how we did it when we couldn't talk. Our parents

1312
01:15:17,560 --> 01:15:20,799
Speaker 1: didn't go knock it off with that Google Gaga stuff.

1313
01:15:21,200 --> 01:15:24,559
Speaker 1: God damn it starts speaking English, you know. No, they

1314
01:15:24,560 --> 01:15:31,680
Speaker 1: were like nurturing mama, mama, mama, over and over and

1315
01:15:32,000 --> 01:15:36,519
Speaker 1: finally we have a vocabulary of four words, mama, dada, high,

1316
01:15:37,040 --> 01:15:41,400
Speaker 1: goya and but by the time we go to kindergarten,

1317
01:15:41,439 --> 01:15:43,639
Speaker 1: we learned that we know thousands of words and speaking

1318
01:15:43,720 --> 01:15:46,360
Speaker 1: complete sentences. Yeah. One of my best friends has a baby,

1319
01:15:46,400 --> 01:15:49,519
Speaker 1: and I'll walk around my backyard with her. When I'm

1320
01:15:49,520 --> 01:15:52,320
Speaker 1: watching her over and over again, you go, what is that?

1321
01:15:52,439 --> 01:15:56,400
Speaker 1: Can you say? Tree? And she says gee? And then

1322
01:15:56,400 --> 01:15:58,200
Speaker 1: I pointed to my dog and I say, what's that?

1323
01:15:58,320 --> 01:16:00,000
Speaker 1: Is that a doggie? What does a dog? He say,

1324
01:16:00,120 --> 01:16:03,840
Speaker 1: and she says wolf. You know, we teach, We teach

1325
01:16:03,920 --> 01:16:07,439
Speaker 1: each other, and you're right. I think I think there's

1326
01:16:07,520 --> 01:16:11,280
Speaker 1: so much learning that we've done that sometimes we don't

1327
01:16:11,320 --> 01:16:13,200
Speaker 1: have faith in we don't think we know how to

1328
01:16:13,240 --> 01:16:15,960
Speaker 1: do something. And those little kids, how excited they are

1329
01:16:16,240 --> 01:16:18,599
Speaker 1: when they learn a new word, when they when they

1330
01:16:18,600 --> 01:16:22,400
Speaker 1: are shown the alphabet. Oh, they're so because you know why,

1331
01:16:22,520 --> 01:16:26,439
Speaker 1: as humans we crave knowledge. So to get back to

1332
01:16:26,479 --> 01:16:29,760
Speaker 1: an earlier question of yours, why how has Trump and

1333
01:16:29,800 --> 01:16:35,120
Speaker 1: the Republicans made being smart a bad thing? Why why

1334
01:16:35,120 --> 01:16:38,000
Speaker 1: do we call that being elite? We are actually we're

1335
01:16:38,040 --> 01:16:41,679
Speaker 1: wired to want to learn, to want to know. When

1336
01:16:41,920 --> 01:16:45,559
Speaker 1: when my when I was growing up, my dad worked

1337
01:16:45,560 --> 01:16:49,920
Speaker 1: on the assembly line in the spark plug factory, and

1338
01:16:49,960 --> 01:16:52,000
Speaker 1: all the other men and women that worked with him

1339
01:16:52,080 --> 01:16:55,120
Speaker 1: on that assembly line there, they were all behind John F.

1340
01:16:55,200 --> 01:16:59,599
Speaker 1: Kennedy for president. They weren't looking at Kennedy going, oh,

1341
01:16:59,680 --> 01:17:02,680
Speaker 1: he's who is the smart guy from Harvard? Who's he

1342
01:17:02,720 --> 01:17:06,200
Speaker 1: think he is? No, they were because they only had

1343
01:17:06,240 --> 01:17:08,920
Speaker 1: either a grade school or a high school education. They

1344
01:17:08,960 --> 01:17:12,440
Speaker 1: wanted the president to be smarter than them. They demanded

1345
01:17:12,479 --> 01:17:15,400
Speaker 1: the president be a lot smarter than them, and they

1346
01:17:15,479 --> 01:17:20,360
Speaker 1: admired him for his intellect. They were they were so

1347
01:17:20,479 --> 01:17:25,120
Speaker 1: proud to vote for somebody so smart. The fact that

1348
01:17:25,160 --> 01:17:28,479
Speaker 1: we've got to this point where that we're told that

1349
01:17:28,520 --> 01:17:32,080
Speaker 1: you're stupid if you vote for somebody smart, that stupid

1350
01:17:32,120 --> 01:17:36,200
Speaker 1: should somehow vote for stupid? This is this is if

1351
01:17:36,520 --> 01:17:38,360
Speaker 1: my dad was still with us, he would just be

1352
01:17:38,760 --> 01:17:42,000
Speaker 1: so disappointed because whenever he ran into somebody that knew

1353
01:17:42,000 --> 01:17:46,639
Speaker 1: more than him, he marveled at it. He wasn't threatened

1354
01:17:46,640 --> 01:17:49,960
Speaker 1: by it. In fact, he saw an opportunity to learn

1355
01:17:50,040 --> 01:17:52,840
Speaker 1: things that he didn't know and then came away from

1356
01:17:52,840 --> 01:17:56,720
Speaker 1: it smarter himself. And I think there is we need

1357
01:17:56,760 --> 01:18:00,240
Speaker 1: to sort of jostle ourselves and remember, Okay, if I

1358
01:18:00,280 --> 01:18:03,120
Speaker 1: sit down and I interview somebody like a doctor or

1359
01:18:03,160 --> 01:18:05,439
Speaker 1: a physicist, of course they know a ton of information

1360
01:18:05,479 --> 01:18:07,639
Speaker 1: I don't know. I want to learn it. I want

1361
01:18:07,680 --> 01:18:10,080
Speaker 1: to know. I'm curious. I want them to teach me something.

1362
01:18:10,560 --> 01:18:13,040
Speaker 1: I find them to be just as fascinating. By the way,

1363
01:18:13,080 --> 01:18:15,080
Speaker 1: if your dad was still with us and could explain

1364
01:18:15,120 --> 01:18:17,200
Speaker 1: to me how a spark plug worked, I'd listen to

1365
01:18:17,240 --> 01:18:19,240
Speaker 1: him talk about it for two hours, because guess what,

1366
01:18:19,360 --> 01:18:23,200
Speaker 1: I don't know about that either. You know, we all

1367
01:18:23,240 --> 01:18:27,160
Speaker 1: have such inherent value in what we know, whether what

1368
01:18:27,280 --> 01:18:34,120
Speaker 1: we know is a craftsman skill or a deeply specific

1369
01:18:34,280 --> 01:18:40,160
Speaker 1: scientific specialty. And I don't understand how they've been pitted

1370
01:18:40,160 --> 01:18:43,439
Speaker 1: against each other. And I really don't understand how a

1371
01:18:43,520 --> 01:18:48,040
Speaker 1: guy like Donald Trump, who owns private jets and pent

1372
01:18:48,160 --> 01:18:51,040
Speaker 1: houses in the most expensive city in the world is

1373
01:18:51,120 --> 01:18:55,400
Speaker 1: calling people like you and I who are storytellers elitists.

1374
01:18:55,880 --> 01:18:58,200
Speaker 1: I'm like, bro, I don't know anybody with a jet

1375
01:18:58,320 --> 01:19:03,400
Speaker 1: except for you, Mr. President. What's going on? Who's the elitist?

1376
01:19:03,439 --> 01:19:06,160
Speaker 1: It's like you and a bunch of faceless billionaire guys

1377
01:19:06,720 --> 01:19:10,040
Speaker 1: are are the elite. Most of us, like most people

1378
01:19:10,080 --> 01:19:12,760
Speaker 1: with SAG cards, work second jobs because they don't act

1379
01:19:12,880 --> 01:19:16,640
Speaker 1: enough to pay their bills. It's it's such a strange

1380
01:19:17,120 --> 01:19:21,280
Speaker 1: kind of bastardization of facts in all these arenas. The

1381
01:19:21,320 --> 01:19:26,920
Speaker 1: irony of this is that our current president is other

1382
01:19:27,000 --> 01:19:30,240
Speaker 1: than Ronald Reagan. I believe the only and I think

1383
01:19:30,320 --> 01:19:34,000
Speaker 1: Reagan was retired at that time. Trump maybe the only

1384
01:19:34,640 --> 01:19:38,439
Speaker 1: union member president who was a union member when he

1385
01:19:38,560 --> 01:19:42,120
Speaker 1: ran for president that we've ever had. Think about that. Mr.

1386
01:19:42,600 --> 01:19:45,680
Speaker 1: His so called hatred of the elites, that that he

1387
01:19:45,920 --> 01:19:49,479
Speaker 1: holds a SAG card, He had a TV show that

1388
01:19:49,560 --> 01:19:54,760
Speaker 1: was on for fourteen seasons and had a brother in laws.

1389
01:19:54,800 --> 01:19:58,599
Speaker 1: He installs furnaces and air conditioners, and he's you know,

1390
01:19:58,960 --> 01:20:01,559
Speaker 1: he was saying when he was thinking about doing something else,

1391
01:20:01,600 --> 01:20:03,479
Speaker 1: and I said, well, that's good, you should if you

1392
01:20:03,520 --> 01:20:05,599
Speaker 1: want to. But let me just tell you something nobody

1393
01:20:05,640 --> 01:20:08,479
Speaker 1: knows how to do squat anymore. The fact that you

1394
01:20:08,520 --> 01:20:11,120
Speaker 1: know how to install a furnace or to fix it

1395
01:20:11,200 --> 01:20:14,840
Speaker 1: air conditioner, you will work till the last day of

1396
01:20:14,880 --> 01:20:17,240
Speaker 1: your life. You will always have a roof over your

1397
01:20:17,280 --> 01:20:20,080
Speaker 1: head because nobody knows how to do anything anymore. It's

1398
01:20:20,120 --> 01:20:25,640
Speaker 1: really true. Wow. So obviously it's it's easy for listeners

1399
01:20:25,680 --> 01:20:31,880
Speaker 1: to know about your incredible library of work. And and

1400
01:20:32,000 --> 01:20:35,240
Speaker 1: I will say, you know, I remember being a kid

1401
01:20:35,280 --> 01:20:37,960
Speaker 1: in middle school. I was in Mr. Hallman's biology class

1402
01:20:38,439 --> 01:20:40,800
Speaker 1: in the eighth grade, I think it was, or maybe

1403
01:20:40,800 --> 01:20:42,120
Speaker 1: it was ninth grade. I had him two years in

1404
01:20:42,120 --> 01:20:44,559
Speaker 1: a row, so my memories are a little fuzzy. But

1405
01:20:45,680 --> 01:20:48,800
Speaker 1: when when Columbine happened, and one of my best friends

1406
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:51,800
Speaker 1: from summer camps in the age of nine was at

1407
01:20:51,840 --> 01:20:54,960
Speaker 1: the time going to school in Colorado, and we didn't

1408
01:20:55,000 --> 01:20:58,320
Speaker 1: have Twitter or Instagram to give us immediate updates. We

1409
01:20:58,360 --> 01:21:00,760
Speaker 1: didn't know what was happening. We just got word in

1410
01:21:00,800 --> 01:21:03,280
Speaker 1: the school that there had been a shooting in a

1411
01:21:03,320 --> 01:21:06,200
Speaker 1: school in Colorado and kids were dead, and we knew

1412
01:21:06,200 --> 01:21:09,760
Speaker 1: nothing else. And I remember all afternoon I wondered if

1413
01:21:09,760 --> 01:21:12,919
Speaker 1: it was my best friend's school. I wondered what was happening.

1414
01:21:13,600 --> 01:21:18,439
Speaker 1: And I remember what it was like to watch Bowling

1415
01:21:18,479 --> 01:21:21,640
Speaker 1: for Columbine when you released that film, and when I

1416
01:21:21,680 --> 01:21:26,280
Speaker 1: fast forward to today as we're recording this, there have

1417
01:21:26,360 --> 01:21:30,640
Speaker 1: been over four hundred mass shootings just this year, not

1418
01:21:30,760 --> 01:21:34,439
Speaker 1: since Columbine, just this year, just in that's actually more

1419
01:21:34,560 --> 01:21:39,040
Speaker 1: days than there are in the year. And for listeners,

1420
01:21:39,080 --> 01:21:42,400
Speaker 1: of a mass shooting is defined as four or more

1421
01:21:42,439 --> 01:21:46,320
Speaker 1: people being shot or killed, which is an insane thing

1422
01:21:46,320 --> 01:21:49,640
Speaker 1: that we have to define this. Every town reports that

1423
01:21:49,720 --> 01:21:52,439
Speaker 1: it has tracked at least nine incidents of fire on

1424
01:21:52,640 --> 01:21:56,479
Speaker 1: school grounds alone in two thousand nineteen, and that was

1425
01:21:56,880 --> 01:22:00,000
Speaker 1: that was the status of December eleven, and that include

1426
01:22:00,160 --> 01:22:06,840
Speaker 1: three suicides and sixty three injuries. I wonder how, having

1427
01:22:06,840 --> 01:22:10,479
Speaker 1: been so close to this issue for so long, you

1428
01:22:10,520 --> 01:22:13,680
Speaker 1: think about it now, because you start Bowling for Columbine

1429
01:22:14,120 --> 01:22:16,639
Speaker 1: with a scene where you go to a bank that's

1430
01:22:16,680 --> 01:22:20,679
Speaker 1: giving away a gun for every new checking account opened,

1431
01:22:22,680 --> 01:22:26,639
Speaker 1: which just seems so preposterous to me. When you made

1432
01:22:26,680 --> 01:22:31,360
Speaker 1: the doc, could you have ever fathomed that we would

1433
01:22:31,360 --> 01:22:34,439
Speaker 1: be where we are today? No, just the opposite. We

1434
01:22:34,560 --> 01:22:38,320
Speaker 1: started making that film that afternoon, we came into work

1435
01:22:39,000 --> 01:22:42,800
Speaker 1: it was on the TV screen, the Columbine shooting. We're

1436
01:22:42,800 --> 01:22:45,400
Speaker 1: in the middle of our TV show. We're we had

1437
01:22:45,400 --> 01:22:49,200
Speaker 1: a show on Bravo called The Awful Truth, and we

1438
01:22:49,200 --> 01:22:51,760
Speaker 1: were also stunned by it because we remember, this was

1439
01:22:51,800 --> 01:22:56,280
Speaker 1: not a a regular thing mass shootings, and certainly not

1440
01:22:56,400 --> 01:23:00,320
Speaker 1: school shootings, not that they hadn't happened before, but they were,

1441
01:23:00,360 --> 01:23:03,439
Speaker 1: you know, it just wasn't a thing. And I said

1442
01:23:03,520 --> 01:23:05,080
Speaker 1: to my crew, I said, you know what, we have

1443
01:23:05,160 --> 01:23:07,200
Speaker 1: to make up. We have to start right now on

1444
01:23:07,360 --> 01:23:12,680
Speaker 1: this because this will become a thing and we need

1445
01:23:12,720 --> 01:23:14,400
Speaker 1: to stop it. And all we know how to do

1446
01:23:14,479 --> 01:23:16,960
Speaker 1: is make TV and movies. So we're gonna do something

1447
01:23:17,400 --> 01:23:20,120
Speaker 1: that will hopefully raise consciousness and put a put an

1448
01:23:20,200 --> 01:23:24,160
Speaker 1: end to this. And the very next day I contacted

1449
01:23:24,560 --> 01:23:25,920
Speaker 1: I mean, I figured out where am I gonna get

1450
01:23:25,920 --> 01:23:28,080
Speaker 1: the money to make this movie. I was never gonna

1451
01:23:28,120 --> 01:23:30,200
Speaker 1: get it inside this country. Everyone's so afraid of the

1452
01:23:30,280 --> 01:23:33,800
Speaker 1: n r A. So I called some Canadians. I knew

1453
01:23:34,080 --> 01:23:37,320
Speaker 1: because Canada doesn't kill the Canadians don't kill each other

1454
01:23:37,640 --> 01:23:39,920
Speaker 1: the way we kill each other, even though they're right

1455
01:23:39,920 --> 01:23:42,080
Speaker 1: next door to us. They watched the same movies. They

1456
01:23:42,080 --> 01:23:44,880
Speaker 1: played the same violent video games. They have pretty much

1457
01:23:44,920 --> 01:23:47,960
Speaker 1: the same culture that we have. And yet and they

1458
01:23:47,960 --> 01:23:49,720
Speaker 1: have a lot of guns. By the way, there's more

1459
01:23:49,800 --> 01:23:54,000
Speaker 1: hunters in Canada than hockey players. So there was a

1460
01:23:54,000 --> 01:23:57,719
Speaker 1: statistic was something like, um seven million guns or whatever

1461
01:23:58,160 --> 01:24:01,200
Speaker 1: owned by Canadians, but they don't shoot each other. And

1462
01:24:01,240 --> 01:24:03,920
Speaker 1: I wanted to find out why is that? And I

1463
01:24:04,000 --> 01:24:05,680
Speaker 1: and so I asked the Canadians for the money, and

1464
01:24:05,720 --> 01:24:08,000
Speaker 1: they gave me the money to start making the film.

1465
01:24:08,280 --> 01:24:10,760
Speaker 1: And we started out, Honest to God, this is our

1466
01:24:10,760 --> 01:24:13,760
Speaker 1: thought that day, if we do this right, Columbine will

1467
01:24:13,800 --> 01:24:17,120
Speaker 1: be the first and the last of these mass school shootings.

1468
01:24:18,080 --> 01:24:21,000
Speaker 1: So when you as you started to ask me about this,

1469
01:24:21,280 --> 01:24:24,240
Speaker 1: I don't know why. I continue to still choke up

1470
01:24:24,479 --> 01:24:26,760
Speaker 1: when I think about that day and when I think

1471
01:24:26,800 --> 01:24:29,439
Speaker 1: about we spent the next two and a half years

1472
01:24:29,680 --> 01:24:33,639
Speaker 1: making that film with this grand desire that no more,

1473
01:24:34,160 --> 01:24:40,759
Speaker 1: not again, and that it only got worse that nobody listened,

1474
01:24:40,880 --> 01:24:44,000
Speaker 1: nobody would have the conversation. Everyone was afraid of the

1475
01:24:44,120 --> 01:24:48,320
Speaker 1: n r A that it pains me with on such

1476
01:24:48,320 --> 01:24:51,360
Speaker 1: a level I can't I can't even describe it, because

1477
01:24:52,000 --> 01:24:55,200
Speaker 1: I had just committed myself to making sure that this

1478
01:24:55,240 --> 01:24:59,320
Speaker 1: would end, and it's it's only gotten worse. There have

1479
01:24:59,400 --> 01:25:02,760
Speaker 1: been good things have happened, especially in the off your

1480
01:25:02,760 --> 01:25:07,280
Speaker 1: election last year. The NRA, their candidates lost, many lost

1481
01:25:07,600 --> 01:25:10,439
Speaker 1: to Congress, and we were able to run candidates who

1482
01:25:10,520 --> 01:25:14,040
Speaker 1: defeated the n A candidate. So that's a good thing.

1483
01:25:14,479 --> 01:25:17,080
Speaker 1: A thing. There's also less and less people in this

1484
01:25:17,200 --> 01:25:21,080
Speaker 1: country that actually own guns, and your generation and the

1485
01:25:21,120 --> 01:25:24,920
Speaker 1: generation that's coming out of high school behind you, they

1486
01:25:24,920 --> 01:25:27,000
Speaker 1: don't want to hunt, they don't want to kill animals,

1487
01:25:27,040 --> 01:25:28,920
Speaker 1: they don't want to kill people, they don't want to

1488
01:25:28,960 --> 01:25:31,320
Speaker 1: have a gun. And it's a real problem for the

1489
01:25:31,320 --> 01:25:34,400
Speaker 1: gun manufacturers. One of them just filed for bankruptcy, in fact,

1490
01:25:34,400 --> 01:25:37,680
Speaker 1: one of the big ones. So the Washington posted this

1491
01:25:37,720 --> 01:25:40,479
Speaker 1: great study a couple of years ago on gun owner

1492
01:25:40,520 --> 01:25:43,240
Speaker 1: ship in American and really the message was we are

1493
01:25:43,240 --> 01:25:46,840
Speaker 1: not a gun crazy country. Seventy eight percent of our

1494
01:25:47,040 --> 01:25:52,720
Speaker 1: of our fellow Americans do not own a gun. That's

1495
01:25:52,760 --> 01:25:55,360
Speaker 1: the country we live in. Don't own a gun. But

1496
01:25:55,600 --> 01:26:00,800
Speaker 1: the scary statistic was three of our fellow Americans own

1497
01:26:01,040 --> 01:26:05,160
Speaker 1: half of all the guns, and that is approximately a

1498
01:26:05,240 --> 01:26:10,920
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty million guns owned by just three of

1499
01:26:11,000 --> 01:26:15,479
Speaker 1: the population. That is scary. They are stockpiling guns. I

1500
01:26:15,520 --> 01:26:18,280
Speaker 1: think we know what they're stockpiling them for the fear

1501
01:26:18,360 --> 01:26:20,760
Speaker 1: that they have of the world that is about to

1502
01:26:20,760 --> 01:26:24,400
Speaker 1: face them. And it's why, sadly a lot of them

1503
01:26:24,400 --> 01:26:28,160
Speaker 1: are for Trump. He's the last best hope of of

1504
01:26:28,280 --> 01:26:32,000
Speaker 1: sort of white male domination that we've that served us

1505
01:26:32,000 --> 01:26:34,599
Speaker 1: so well for so many years. Please admit this, Yes, yes,

1506
01:26:35,080 --> 01:26:37,960
Speaker 1: uh in facetious of course, yes, of course, just to

1507
01:26:38,000 --> 01:26:41,400
Speaker 1: clarify for anyone listening, you know, yes, right, just in

1508
01:26:41,439 --> 01:26:44,479
Speaker 1: case you can't see my face. But I don't actually

1509
01:26:44,479 --> 01:26:47,559
Speaker 1: believe that. But these they believe we're having there. They

1510
01:26:47,560 --> 01:26:52,120
Speaker 1: see women getting elected. That's scary. They see this is

1511
01:26:52,160 --> 01:26:55,160
Speaker 1: I think this past September was eight September in a

1512
01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:58,439
Speaker 1: row in America when the majority of our first graders

1513
01:26:58,600 --> 01:27:03,160
Speaker 1: entering school we're not white. I mean that the majority

1514
01:27:03,200 --> 01:27:06,280
Speaker 1: of the kids entering school now in first grade, for

1515
01:27:06,360 --> 01:27:08,760
Speaker 1: eight years in a row, have not been white. So

1516
01:27:08,920 --> 01:27:11,720
Speaker 1: they see that, they see that it's not going to

1517
01:27:11,760 --> 01:27:14,880
Speaker 1: be all about white America anymore. They were gonna have

1518
01:27:14,880 --> 01:27:17,559
Speaker 1: to learn to live with each other. And it's scary

1519
01:27:17,600 --> 01:27:20,760
Speaker 1: to them. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry they're scared, but

1520
01:27:20,960 --> 01:27:22,960
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to live with the future. It's so

1521
01:27:23,000 --> 01:27:27,280
Speaker 1: strange to me, though, that anybody cares, like, why do

1522
01:27:27,320 --> 01:27:29,920
Speaker 1: you care what anybody looks like? What does it matter?

1523
01:27:29,960 --> 01:27:32,519
Speaker 1: I care if you're a nice person, I care if

1524
01:27:32,520 --> 01:27:36,840
Speaker 1: you do good in your community. I'm I'm actually quite

1525
01:27:36,960 --> 01:27:40,960
Speaker 1: jealous of people who are multi lingual. I wish that,

1526
01:27:41,160 --> 01:27:44,519
Speaker 1: you know, I had done more work to study French,

1527
01:27:44,560 --> 01:27:46,559
Speaker 1: and I certainly wish that I had learned Spanish, and

1528
01:27:46,560 --> 01:27:48,840
Speaker 1: it's why I've downloaded a language learning app and now

1529
01:27:48,880 --> 01:27:53,560
Speaker 1: I'm trying, you know, I just think it's so strange

1530
01:27:53,760 --> 01:28:00,360
Speaker 1: that people care about that. Well, you're speaking as a

1531
01:28:00,400 --> 01:28:04,000
Speaker 1: younger person, and that's and this is one of this

1532
01:28:04,040 --> 01:28:07,280
Speaker 1: is one of the hopeful signs that people in your

1533
01:28:07,280 --> 01:28:11,960
Speaker 1: generation by and large are not haters, they're not dig

1534
01:28:12,439 --> 01:28:15,040
Speaker 1: they're not racist, they don't care who you're in love with.

1535
01:28:15,400 --> 01:28:17,920
Speaker 1: And you, your generation and the one after you here

1536
01:28:18,120 --> 01:28:20,320
Speaker 1: are leading the way to a better world. I can

1537
01:28:20,320 --> 01:28:23,240
Speaker 1: see that very very clearly. But but I give to

1538
01:28:23,320 --> 01:28:25,120
Speaker 1: the to the people who are your parents, to the

1539
01:28:25,600 --> 01:28:28,840
Speaker 1: to the older the older adults are boomers. Even you

1540
01:28:28,880 --> 01:28:30,559
Speaker 1: were raised by these people. You were raised by some

1541
01:28:30,600 --> 01:28:33,040
Speaker 1: of these people that had your mom and dad had

1542
01:28:33,120 --> 01:28:36,160
Speaker 1: those values. I'm I'm certain and they raised you to

1543
01:28:36,240 --> 01:28:39,439
Speaker 1: look at people with love and not hate, and all

1544
01:28:39,439 --> 01:28:41,800
Speaker 1: of us benefit from that. But it is funny that

1545
01:28:41,840 --> 01:28:44,479
Speaker 1: you bring up, you know, the stats about Canada, because again,

1546
01:28:44,479 --> 01:28:47,920
Speaker 1: my dad's Canadian. My dad gave me my first rifle

1547
01:28:47,960 --> 01:28:51,479
Speaker 1: when I was twelve. I've been a sharpshooter since I

1548
01:28:51,520 --> 01:28:54,240
Speaker 1: was a teenager. I actually I am a gun owner,

1549
01:28:55,160 --> 01:28:58,840
Speaker 1: and I love it as a hobby. But never have

1550
01:28:59,040 --> 01:29:03,800
Speaker 1: I felt that my ability to have a hobby outweighs

1551
01:29:03,800 --> 01:29:09,160
Speaker 1: someone's right to live. And it's it's just so strange

1552
01:29:09,160 --> 01:29:12,240
Speaker 1: to me. You know that. The day before Parkland, I

1553
01:29:12,320 --> 01:29:14,240
Speaker 1: was actually at the range with some of my buddies

1554
01:29:14,280 --> 01:29:16,639
Speaker 1: who are in the military, and we were doing drills

1555
01:29:16,640 --> 01:29:22,439
Speaker 1: where they are and I appreciate the technical skill also

1556
01:29:22,520 --> 01:29:25,880
Speaker 1: for my job, but never have I ever had the

1557
01:29:25,920 --> 01:29:28,679
Speaker 1: desire to take one of those guns home. And I've

1558
01:29:28,680 --> 01:29:31,120
Speaker 1: worked with swap teams, and I've been on USO tours

1559
01:29:31,120 --> 01:29:33,240
Speaker 1: and I and I go to the range with with

1560
01:29:33,640 --> 01:29:36,160
Speaker 1: servicemen who are like, no, these are weapons of war.

1561
01:29:36,240 --> 01:29:38,920
Speaker 1: You don't need this at home. You shouldn't have this.

1562
01:29:39,520 --> 01:29:41,840
Speaker 1: I came home from I don't want you to have

1563
01:29:41,960 --> 01:29:45,400
Speaker 1: this at home, right, No, it's dangerous to have it

1564
01:29:45,439 --> 01:29:49,200
Speaker 1: at home. If somebody gets their hands on it, somebody's depressed,

1565
01:29:49,720 --> 01:29:53,479
Speaker 1: there's a gun presents much more likelihood of suicide. Uh oh,

1566
01:29:53,520 --> 01:29:55,240
Speaker 1: there's a whole bunch of wrong reasons to have it

1567
01:29:55,280 --> 01:29:57,479
Speaker 1: at home. But you know, the Canadians, I believe the

1568
01:29:57,560 --> 01:29:59,760
Speaker 1: law in Canada is for handguns. It's very hard to

1569
01:29:59,760 --> 01:30:02,040
Speaker 1: get a and gun. You can get rifles and shotguns

1570
01:30:02,040 --> 01:30:04,439
Speaker 1: for hunting, but you can get it. If you like

1571
01:30:04,520 --> 01:30:07,680
Speaker 1: to target practice, you can have a gun. You just

1572
01:30:07,720 --> 01:30:10,200
Speaker 1: have to keep it locked up at the gun range.

1573
01:30:10,400 --> 01:30:12,639
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I think we should do here. Yeah,

1574
01:30:13,000 --> 01:30:15,439
Speaker 1: and you go there, there's your gun. You go, you

1575
01:30:15,520 --> 01:30:17,240
Speaker 1: do the thing, You leave it there. Why do you

1576
01:30:17,280 --> 01:30:20,280
Speaker 1: need that at home? It's it's crazy to me. And

1577
01:30:20,320 --> 01:30:22,880
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because I I'm now at a

1578
01:30:22,880 --> 01:30:27,519
Speaker 1: point where I only eat any sort of animal product

1579
01:30:27,640 --> 01:30:32,200
Speaker 1: a third of my meals. And people find it ironic that,

1580
01:30:32,400 --> 01:30:35,320
Speaker 1: you know, I advocate for environmental justice, and I also

1581
01:30:35,360 --> 01:30:37,679
Speaker 1: have buddies who are hunters, and I've I've been hunting

1582
01:30:37,680 --> 01:30:39,960
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine up in Montana, a couple

1583
01:30:40,040 --> 01:30:43,680
Speaker 1: of times, and we talk about what his experience is

1584
01:30:43,720 --> 01:30:45,800
Speaker 1: really living off the land and doing it in a

1585
01:30:45,840 --> 01:30:49,680
Speaker 1: sustainable way and doing it in a reasonable way, and

1586
01:30:49,720 --> 01:30:52,439
Speaker 1: taking very little of what he needs and surviving mostly

1587
01:30:52,439 --> 01:30:55,200
Speaker 1: out of him and his wife's garden. And and we

1588
01:30:55,200 --> 01:30:57,840
Speaker 1: were talking about hunting, and he was like, look, he

1589
01:30:57,920 --> 01:30:59,320
Speaker 1: was like, if you need an a R fifteen to

1590
01:30:59,360 --> 01:31:03,160
Speaker 1: hit a deer, you're a really bad hunter. Also, there

1591
01:31:03,160 --> 01:31:06,240
Speaker 1: won't be much of it left, you know, all these

1592
01:31:06,320 --> 01:31:10,320
Speaker 1: arguments that people make about why they want these things.

1593
01:31:11,120 --> 01:31:13,120
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of crushed by how well the n

1594
01:31:13,240 --> 01:31:18,040
Speaker 1: r a S storytelling has worked historically. I'm glad it's changing.

1595
01:31:18,400 --> 01:31:20,880
Speaker 1: I'm glad they're coming apart. I'm glad people are seeing

1596
01:31:20,920 --> 01:31:23,959
Speaker 1: that they really are a lobbying group. They're not actually

1597
01:31:24,040 --> 01:31:27,840
Speaker 1: for anything other than themselves. Have you, Sophia, have you

1598
01:31:27,920 --> 01:31:30,439
Speaker 1: on this podcast, and if you don't want to talk

1599
01:31:30,479 --> 01:31:33,640
Speaker 1: about this, just say so, But have you spoken of

1600
01:31:33,680 --> 01:31:37,800
Speaker 1: the fact that a cousin of yours was shot at

1601
01:31:37,800 --> 01:31:42,320
Speaker 1: the mass shooting incident in Arizona with Congresswoman Gabby Gifford's

1602
01:31:43,040 --> 01:31:47,240
Speaker 1: and when he started spraying the bullets gets struck. Your

1603
01:31:47,439 --> 01:31:50,280
Speaker 1: cousin Christina, there have you talked about that at all?

1604
01:31:50,439 --> 01:31:53,720
Speaker 1: Or I'm just curious as one because I I mean,

1605
01:31:53,800 --> 01:31:56,720
Speaker 1: I I have this again. I get stopped all the

1606
01:31:56,760 --> 01:31:59,280
Speaker 1: time by people in the airport, on the street, whatever.

1607
01:32:00,000 --> 01:32:02,400
Speaker 1: We've had these incidents, who've had things happen where guns

1608
01:32:02,400 --> 01:32:05,400
Speaker 1: have entered their lives in this violent and tragic way,

1609
01:32:05,520 --> 01:32:09,519
Speaker 1: and um, you know, you actually have someone in your

1610
01:32:09,520 --> 01:32:13,640
Speaker 1: extended family that suffered and your family suffered as a

1611
01:32:13,680 --> 01:32:16,639
Speaker 1: result of that. It's not something we've talked about, and

1612
01:32:16,800 --> 01:32:19,280
Speaker 1: not for any reason other than it there hasn't been

1613
01:32:19,280 --> 01:32:22,479
Speaker 1: the right sort of conversation for it. And I try

1614
01:32:22,520 --> 01:32:24,599
Speaker 1: to be sensitive to the fact that that is really

1615
01:32:24,640 --> 01:32:28,479
Speaker 1: her mother's story. You know, Christina's death is Roxanna's story,

1616
01:32:28,560 --> 01:32:32,120
Speaker 1: It's it's her brother Austin story, it's her father's story.

1617
01:32:32,280 --> 01:32:37,960
Speaker 1: For me, the experience was obviously devastating, and part of

1618
01:32:38,000 --> 01:32:41,439
Speaker 1: what it taught me I was already advocating for common

1619
01:32:41,479 --> 01:32:46,719
Speaker 1: sense gun laws and working with gun control advocacy groups

1620
01:32:47,640 --> 01:32:49,600
Speaker 1: UH and and able to talk about it from the

1621
01:32:49,600 --> 01:32:52,720
Speaker 1: perspective of being a person who has grown up in

1622
01:32:52,720 --> 01:32:56,800
Speaker 1: that hobby culture, which very few quote unquote liberals UH

1623
01:32:57,040 --> 01:33:03,080
Speaker 1: did and Christina's death was a for me personally, because

1624
01:33:03,960 --> 01:33:07,720
Speaker 1: I'd been away on location for so long, and Roxanna

1625
01:33:07,760 --> 01:33:09,759
Speaker 1: and her family no longer lived on the East Coast.

1626
01:33:10,880 --> 01:33:13,599
Speaker 1: They had moved to Arizona. We hadn't seen each other,

1627
01:33:14,000 --> 01:33:15,840
Speaker 1: you know, I was living in another state. I'd come

1628
01:33:15,840 --> 01:33:18,000
Speaker 1: home sometimes, I'd see my family once in a while,

1629
01:33:18,600 --> 01:33:21,200
Speaker 1: but we were never making trips to Arizona. We were

1630
01:33:21,240 --> 01:33:24,640
Speaker 1: doing the typical family, you know, emails and newsletters and

1631
01:33:24,680 --> 01:33:29,559
Speaker 1: photo exchanges. And when she died, I realized how quickly

1632
01:33:29,680 --> 01:33:35,400
Speaker 1: time had passed and I had never met her, and

1633
01:33:35,400 --> 01:33:37,680
Speaker 1: and it was such a reminder that time is such

1634
01:33:37,680 --> 01:33:39,960
Speaker 1: an illusion, and we all assume that we have more

1635
01:33:40,000 --> 01:33:42,439
Speaker 1: of it. And every kid who's ever walked into a

1636
01:33:42,560 --> 01:33:45,680
Speaker 1: school and not gone home that day, those kids at

1637
01:33:45,680 --> 01:33:48,360
Speaker 1: Marjorie Storm and Douglas all thought they had more time.

1638
01:33:49,040 --> 01:33:50,879
Speaker 1: They all thought they were going to go to college.

1639
01:33:50,960 --> 01:33:54,080
Speaker 1: They all thought that they had a future ahead of them.

1640
01:33:54,240 --> 01:33:59,519
Speaker 1: And my sweet cousin, who wanted to run for school government,

1641
01:34:00,040 --> 01:34:04,720
Speaker 1: who was really passionate about the news, so much so

1642
01:34:04,840 --> 01:34:07,599
Speaker 1: that her neighbor said, I know she's really into this,

1643
01:34:07,680 --> 01:34:09,759
Speaker 1: and can I take her to see Gabby Gifford speak.

1644
01:34:11,320 --> 01:34:14,200
Speaker 1: She thought she was gonna, you know, run for class

1645
01:34:14,240 --> 01:34:19,639
Speaker 1: president in middle school. And this idea that we are

1646
01:34:19,720 --> 01:34:26,040
Speaker 1: untouchable just isn't true. And it's the reason that I

1647
01:34:26,200 --> 01:34:29,320
Speaker 1: fly anywhere that the Parkland kids need me to be.

1648
01:34:29,400 --> 01:34:32,800
Speaker 1: It's the reason that anytime Shannon Watts calls, I show

1649
01:34:32,880 --> 01:34:37,080
Speaker 1: up somewhere. You know, anyone who thinks that this can't

1650
01:34:37,080 --> 01:34:42,920
Speaker 1: happen to your family is acting on borrowed time. This

1651
01:34:43,000 --> 01:34:46,439
Speaker 1: is all of our issue, whether it's my cousin or

1652
01:34:46,479 --> 01:34:51,160
Speaker 1: your cousin, or or his child or her brother. You know,

1653
01:34:52,840 --> 01:34:56,600
Speaker 1: this is our issue, and we're failing our kids. I

1654
01:34:56,880 --> 01:35:00,240
Speaker 1: hope it was okay to yeah, no, I, I I

1655
01:35:00,280 --> 01:35:02,680
Speaker 1: know it's I. I. You and I don't know each

1656
01:35:02,680 --> 01:35:04,920
Speaker 1: other personally. And somebody had mentioned this to me, and

1657
01:35:05,120 --> 01:35:08,439
Speaker 1: I had not heard this, that you were related to

1658
01:35:08,520 --> 01:35:12,160
Speaker 1: this young girl that was killed in this uh in

1659
01:35:12,200 --> 01:35:15,400
Speaker 1: this shooting, and and I and yet it just reminded

1660
01:35:15,439 --> 01:35:18,640
Speaker 1: me of how many times I've heard this story. I

1661
01:35:18,680 --> 01:35:21,959
Speaker 1: had a cousin that was killed with somebody shot him

1662
01:35:22,120 --> 01:35:25,400
Speaker 1: right in the stomach and killed him. UM that this

1663
01:35:25,479 --> 01:35:28,759
Speaker 1: is this is something that um is all too common,

1664
01:35:29,520 --> 01:35:34,040
Speaker 1: affects all too many families, and which actually just gave

1665
01:35:34,080 --> 01:35:37,080
Speaker 1: me another idea. But when you said that about having

1666
01:35:37,920 --> 01:35:40,880
Speaker 1: not met your cousin because we all live all you know,

1667
01:35:41,640 --> 01:35:44,120
Speaker 1: my sisters now live in California. I'm either in Michigan

1668
01:35:44,200 --> 01:35:47,880
Speaker 1: or New York. You know, family is now so disparate,

1669
01:35:48,600 --> 01:35:50,960
Speaker 1: so many ways, so many corners around the country of

1670
01:35:51,040 --> 01:35:53,960
Speaker 1: the world. And I just sat here thinking, you know,

1671
01:35:54,040 --> 01:35:56,080
Speaker 1: I've got to do that family reunion I've been wanting

1672
01:35:56,120 --> 01:35:59,439
Speaker 1: to do with a larger extended family. All those second

1673
01:35:59,439 --> 01:36:01,920
Speaker 1: and third cousin as I've never met that I want to.

1674
01:36:02,439 --> 01:36:03,960
Speaker 1: I want to know them. I want them to know me.

1675
01:36:04,400 --> 01:36:06,599
Speaker 1: You know, we're not gonna probably have a close personal

1676
01:36:06,640 --> 01:36:10,240
Speaker 1: relationship or whatever, but we are family, and I want

1677
01:36:10,280 --> 01:36:12,200
Speaker 1: to be connected in that way. I don't want to.

1678
01:36:12,960 --> 01:36:15,800
Speaker 1: I don't want to accept that this is the way

1679
01:36:15,840 --> 01:36:17,720
Speaker 1: it has to be, that this is the way the

1680
01:36:17,720 --> 01:36:20,920
Speaker 1: world's going to function from now on, and that we

1681
01:36:21,000 --> 01:36:23,160
Speaker 1: just have to accept it. I won't accept I refused

1682
01:36:23,160 --> 01:36:25,479
Speaker 1: to accept it. And you know I'm so. I I

1683
01:36:25,560 --> 01:36:28,759
Speaker 1: have followed you just as a fan for some time

1684
01:36:29,400 --> 01:36:32,800
Speaker 1: that this is not anything new to you. Your activism

1685
01:36:32,840 --> 01:36:34,720
Speaker 1: and the and the ways that you have spoken out

1686
01:36:34,760 --> 01:36:37,320
Speaker 1: and doing so many things. You know you're known in

1687
01:36:37,320 --> 01:36:39,679
Speaker 1: in places like Detroit. You know where I'm from, because

1688
01:36:40,120 --> 01:36:43,360
Speaker 1: you have helped to help people that want to start

1689
01:36:43,360 --> 01:36:47,479
Speaker 1: a business in low income communities, people who do not

1690
01:36:47,720 --> 01:36:51,960
Speaker 1: have white privilege. People were not white women, women trying

1691
01:36:52,000 --> 01:36:55,640
Speaker 1: to start anything with absolutely no means of capital by

1692
01:36:55,680 --> 01:36:58,960
Speaker 1: which to grow their business. You have been doing so

1693
01:36:59,040 --> 01:37:02,040
Speaker 1: many things on so many levels, whether it is with guns,

1694
01:37:02,040 --> 01:37:05,719
Speaker 1: whether it is with issues regarding women or the environment

1695
01:37:05,920 --> 01:37:08,439
Speaker 1: or whatever. And the fact that we even connected to

1696
01:37:08,479 --> 01:37:11,920
Speaker 1: Detroit and even in a small way, just is is

1697
01:37:11,960 --> 01:37:14,120
Speaker 1: like I you know, we have paid attention to you,

1698
01:37:15,040 --> 01:37:18,760
Speaker 1: and and it gives me a lot of hope that uh,

1699
01:37:19,360 --> 01:37:22,080
Speaker 1: you said that you were in high school when Columbine happened, Right, yeah,

1700
01:37:22,080 --> 01:37:24,479
Speaker 1: I would have been a junior. You would have been

1701
01:37:24,479 --> 01:37:27,360
Speaker 1: a junior in high school, and and my daughter was

1702
01:37:27,400 --> 01:37:31,960
Speaker 1: just graduating then from high school in that year. And

1703
01:37:32,320 --> 01:37:36,439
Speaker 1: that we we adults, older adults, boomers, have allowed this

1704
01:37:36,560 --> 01:37:39,479
Speaker 1: to get worse and worse. That we haven't fixed this.

1705
01:37:39,479 --> 01:37:42,240
Speaker 1: This is on us, And I feel I feel a

1706
01:37:42,280 --> 01:37:45,320
Speaker 1: personal responsibility and I try to speak to everybody I

1707
01:37:45,360 --> 01:37:49,000
Speaker 1: can that we all share this responsibility. Two, it doesn't

1708
01:37:49,000 --> 01:37:51,519
Speaker 1: have to be this way. The Canadians are not better

1709
01:37:51,560 --> 01:37:54,120
Speaker 1: than us, They're not smarter than us. They have the

1710
01:37:54,120 --> 01:37:56,880
Speaker 1: same twenty three chromosomes in each of their cells that

1711
01:37:57,000 --> 01:38:01,000
Speaker 1: we have. If if they and all these other countries

1712
01:38:01,040 --> 01:38:03,400
Speaker 1: have figured it out, we can figure this and health

1713
01:38:03,439 --> 01:38:06,679
Speaker 1: care and everything else out too. Yes, it's a matter

1714
01:38:06,720 --> 01:38:12,200
Speaker 1: of prioritization. It's a matter of enacting policies that show

1715
01:38:12,240 --> 01:38:15,360
Speaker 1: the way we care for other people. I think it's

1716
01:38:15,360 --> 01:38:18,160
Speaker 1: a matter of making sure that every decision that we

1717
01:38:18,280 --> 01:38:21,840
Speaker 1: make in our country is grounded in a philosophy that

1718
01:38:22,000 --> 01:38:25,639
Speaker 1: human rights matter. And I think that's what we're missing.

1719
01:38:25,720 --> 01:38:28,439
Speaker 1: I think I think in a way, we've lost our

1720
01:38:28,520 --> 01:38:31,280
Speaker 1: moral compass, and we pretend to espouse that we make

1721
01:38:31,320 --> 01:38:36,080
Speaker 1: decisions for morals, but we're not. We're making decisions very

1722
01:38:36,080 --> 01:38:39,519
Speaker 1: often for money. And I guess that's that's why it

1723
01:38:39,520 --> 01:38:41,720
Speaker 1: will be very curious, you know. It feels as that

1724
01:38:41,760 --> 01:38:43,800
Speaker 1: we've reached a boiling point and now we're we're in

1725
01:38:43,840 --> 01:38:47,640
Speaker 1: the midst of all this impeachment business, and I'm I

1726
01:38:47,680 --> 01:38:49,680
Speaker 1: am curious to see how it shakes out in the

1727
01:38:49,720 --> 01:38:53,960
Speaker 1: coming weeks. I hope that in a way the votes

1728
01:38:54,240 --> 01:38:58,559
Speaker 1: and the evidence presented will will help us kind of

1729
01:38:58,680 --> 01:39:02,519
Speaker 1: right the ship. And and hopefully with this as a start,

1730
01:39:02,560 --> 01:39:05,920
Speaker 1: and to your point, more and more young people running

1731
01:39:05,960 --> 01:39:09,640
Speaker 1: for office, more and more progressive and inclusive policies being enacted,

1732
01:39:09,880 --> 01:39:12,919
Speaker 1: hopefully we can start to to live some real values.

1733
01:39:13,280 --> 01:39:17,240
Speaker 1: We have no other choice but that. I just can't

1734
01:39:17,280 --> 01:39:20,439
Speaker 1: tell you what it means to have this conversation. I'm

1735
01:39:20,479 --> 01:39:23,479
Speaker 1: actually getting weirdly emotional to them about this conversation with you.

1736
01:39:23,680 --> 01:39:27,360
Speaker 1: I felt this. I felt this way too, and I

1737
01:39:27,400 --> 01:39:30,160
Speaker 1: think they're worried about me in the right and I'm okay,

1738
01:39:32,520 --> 01:39:34,720
Speaker 1: but but this is the kind of conversations we need

1739
01:39:34,760 --> 01:39:38,040
Speaker 1: to be having. And again this this crazy concept of

1740
01:39:38,080 --> 01:39:40,400
Speaker 1: the podcast. You and I never would have had this

1741
01:39:40,439 --> 01:39:44,080
Speaker 1: conversation if if we had been guests on Jimmy Fallon

1742
01:39:45,840 --> 01:39:48,000
Speaker 1: offense to Jimmy call I love him. But but we're

1743
01:39:48,040 --> 01:39:49,800
Speaker 1: sitting we'd just be sitting there side by side on

1744
01:39:49,840 --> 01:39:52,439
Speaker 1: the chair, and we don't have opportunities to have this

1745
01:39:52,520 --> 01:39:55,519
Speaker 1: kind of conversation. And I am so blessed to be

1746
01:39:55,560 --> 01:39:58,720
Speaker 1: able to have had this time with you today. Oh God,

1747
01:39:58,760 --> 01:40:01,559
Speaker 1: I almost forgot to ask you my my closing question

1748
01:40:01,600 --> 01:40:03,880
Speaker 1: that I ask everyone. I'm like over here, just crying

1749
01:40:03,880 --> 01:40:07,760
Speaker 1: like a baby. Hello obvious. The title of the podcast

1750
01:40:08,840 --> 01:40:11,960
Speaker 1: is work in progress. And I ask everyone who comes

1751
01:40:11,960 --> 01:40:14,000
Speaker 1: on the show, when when you hear that phrase, when

1752
01:40:14,040 --> 01:40:17,640
Speaker 1: you think about those three words work in progress, what

1753
01:40:17,760 --> 01:40:20,439
Speaker 1: comes up for you? What? What are you in progress

1754
01:40:20,439 --> 01:40:23,080
Speaker 1: on in your life right now? In my life? Personally

1755
01:40:23,360 --> 01:40:26,240
Speaker 1: or are you speaking in anything you like? It could

1756
01:40:26,280 --> 01:40:30,680
Speaker 1: be professional, political, personal, that's up to you. Well, let

1757
01:40:30,680 --> 01:40:32,240
Speaker 1: me say this because the first thing I thought of

1758
01:40:32,280 --> 01:40:35,559
Speaker 1: when you just asked that was what's really a work

1759
01:40:35,600 --> 01:40:38,719
Speaker 1: in progress? Is this thing we call the United States

1760
01:40:38,760 --> 01:40:42,840
Speaker 1: of America. We've tried from the beginning to get it right.

1761
01:40:43,080 --> 01:40:47,120
Speaker 1: The original idea of a democracy. It hadn't really been

1762
01:40:47,200 --> 01:40:51,120
Speaker 1: tried for what a couple of thousand years since the

1763
01:40:51,160 --> 01:40:55,400
Speaker 1: Greeks gave it a good shot. The Romans tried to republic,

1764
01:40:55,439 --> 01:40:58,240
Speaker 1: but they soon had a dictator and authoritarian that came

1765
01:40:58,280 --> 01:41:00,559
Speaker 1: in to run things and that was the end of that.

1766
01:41:01,520 --> 01:41:05,600
Speaker 1: And then these founders try to get give it a

1767
01:41:05,600 --> 01:41:07,880
Speaker 1: good go, and it was a decent go. It wasn't

1768
01:41:08,320 --> 01:41:12,880
Speaker 1: anywhere near a full go because it left out so

1769
01:41:12,960 --> 01:41:15,240
Speaker 1: many people that never thought the majority of people in

1770
01:41:15,280 --> 01:41:19,760
Speaker 1: this democracy, women and people of color, and and if

1771
01:41:19,800 --> 01:41:21,680
Speaker 1: you if you didn't know him property back then, you

1772
01:41:21,680 --> 01:41:26,040
Speaker 1: couldn't vote. So we've come a long way. It's gotten better.

1773
01:41:26,080 --> 01:41:29,439
Speaker 1: We're in the year anniversary of women getting the right

1774
01:41:29,960 --> 01:41:34,040
Speaker 1: to vote. So it does get better. It does get better.

1775
01:41:34,400 --> 01:41:36,720
Speaker 1: But but we have to this work in progress we

1776
01:41:36,800 --> 01:41:39,320
Speaker 1: call the United States of America. We have to keep

1777
01:41:39,360 --> 01:41:41,880
Speaker 1: working on it. We can't just sit back. I feel

1778
01:41:41,880 --> 01:41:46,519
Speaker 1: bad that after al Gore won the popular vote, that

1779
01:41:46,600 --> 01:41:49,080
Speaker 1: we didn't do anything to get rid of this crazy

1780
01:41:49,080 --> 01:41:51,800
Speaker 1: system that makes it not a democracy. And that was

1781
01:41:51,880 --> 01:41:54,920
Speaker 1: that was nineteen years ago. I won't do this anymore.

1782
01:41:54,920 --> 01:41:56,840
Speaker 1: I won't do this again. When it happened the second

1783
01:41:56,880 --> 01:41:59,680
Speaker 1: time with Hillary, you know, I was like, Okay, that's it.

1784
01:42:00,040 --> 01:42:03,439
Speaker 1: I'm not a true American if I allow this to continue.

1785
01:42:03,479 --> 01:42:05,680
Speaker 1: So I try to participate and do the things I

1786
01:42:05,680 --> 01:42:09,000
Speaker 1: can do to to make the work in progress become

1787
01:42:09,040 --> 01:42:13,559
Speaker 1: a fully realized democracy where everybody has a seat at

1788
01:42:13,560 --> 01:42:17,800
Speaker 1: the table, everybody gets a slice of the pie, no

1789
01:42:17,840 --> 01:42:22,879
Speaker 1: one is left without that. I often say, the America

1790
01:42:22,960 --> 01:42:25,559
Speaker 1: that I want to save is the America we've never had.

1791
01:42:26,200 --> 01:42:30,599
Speaker 1: That's what I'm working towards, and I do my best.

1792
01:42:31,040 --> 01:42:33,519
Speaker 1: I'm only one person and the work in progress that

1793
01:42:33,680 --> 01:42:38,080
Speaker 1: is me. I think that it's really important I say

1794
01:42:38,120 --> 01:42:41,519
Speaker 1: this to fellow boomers all the time, as you enter

1795
01:42:41,560 --> 01:42:45,559
Speaker 1: your fifties in your sixties, that you not lose sight

1796
01:42:46,000 --> 01:42:50,160
Speaker 1: of all of the verve that you had when you

1797
01:42:50,160 --> 01:42:54,600
Speaker 1: were young. You know, they they may have laughed at you,

1798
01:42:54,760 --> 01:42:58,679
Speaker 1: at us, because we had these dreams. The dreams weren't wrong,

1799
01:42:59,640 --> 01:43:04,120
Speaker 1: and growing up and becoming mature doesn't mean killing your dream.

1800
01:43:04,600 --> 01:43:08,240
Speaker 1: In fact, if anything, that if you're still alive, you're

1801
01:43:08,240 --> 01:43:11,360
Speaker 1: still with us. Every single day, you could be working

1802
01:43:11,400 --> 01:43:14,000
Speaker 1: on that dream. Whatever the dream was, whether it was

1803
01:43:14,000 --> 01:43:17,040
Speaker 1: a personal thing you wanted to achieve, or whether it's

1804
01:43:16,560 --> 01:43:21,479
Speaker 1: a better neighborhood or a better country, it's all still

1805
01:43:21,520 --> 01:43:25,160
Speaker 1: available to you to do right now. Right after you're

1806
01:43:25,160 --> 01:43:27,760
Speaker 1: done listening to this podcast, you can put it down.

1807
01:43:28,080 --> 01:43:29,880
Speaker 1: You can go on Sophia's site. You can see her

1808
01:43:29,960 --> 01:43:33,200
Speaker 1: links of the things that you could you know, check out,

1809
01:43:33,360 --> 01:43:37,360
Speaker 1: get involved in. It's all there for you. It didn't

1810
01:43:37,400 --> 01:43:39,840
Speaker 1: have to end up like this. We didn't have to

1811
01:43:39,840 --> 01:43:42,760
Speaker 1: get to this point. I'm sorry we did. And now

1812
01:43:42,800 --> 01:43:46,400
Speaker 1: we'll do our damnedest in these next eleven months to

1813
01:43:46,520 --> 01:43:48,479
Speaker 1: pull back from the Brink. I think we can do this.

1814
01:43:48,600 --> 01:43:52,000
Speaker 1: I really really believe we can do this. We still's

1815
01:43:52,040 --> 01:43:54,479
Speaker 1: do it together. I've told some of the candidates the

1816
01:43:55,080 --> 01:43:57,439
Speaker 1: and some of their staff that are running for president,

1817
01:43:57,800 --> 01:44:00,920
Speaker 1: the Democrats, you know, what you to do in the

1818
01:44:01,000 --> 01:44:03,960
Speaker 1: last two weeks of January before the caucuses in the

1819
01:44:04,000 --> 01:44:08,479
Speaker 1: primary start is instead of having these these debates where

1820
01:44:08,760 --> 01:44:11,760
Speaker 1: we all know where everybody stands now, you guys should

1821
01:44:11,760 --> 01:44:14,840
Speaker 1: do a stadium tour, you know whatever, the last six

1822
01:44:14,960 --> 01:44:17,519
Speaker 1: or eight of you there are whatever, Literally do a

1823
01:44:17,560 --> 01:44:20,639
Speaker 1: stadium tour around the country where you come out together

1824
01:44:21,200 --> 01:44:24,719
Speaker 1: on the stage, hand in hand, saying we are here.

1825
01:44:25,360 --> 01:44:29,120
Speaker 1: We we are the you know, we're the Avengers, We're

1826
01:44:29,120 --> 01:44:32,200
Speaker 1: the We're the Justice League, Worth or whatever. We are

1827
01:44:32,320 --> 01:44:34,879
Speaker 1: committed to each other. Even though we have different ideas

1828
01:44:35,160 --> 01:44:37,799
Speaker 1: about how to get there, We're going to get there together.

1829
01:44:38,360 --> 01:44:40,519
Speaker 1: And your idea what you said about you know, yeah,

1830
01:44:40,520 --> 01:44:44,479
Speaker 1: so some somebody, you know, maybe Corey Booker isn't gonna

1831
01:44:44,479 --> 01:44:46,760
Speaker 1: make it, but you know, everything he's been saying about

1832
01:44:46,760 --> 01:44:50,360
Speaker 1: mass incarceration, I want him in charge of our prison

1833
01:44:50,479 --> 01:44:53,599
Speaker 1: system or our justice part of our justice system. Julian

1834
01:44:53,680 --> 01:44:57,519
Speaker 1: Castro has said so many important things about immigrants and

1835
01:44:57,560 --> 01:45:00,920
Speaker 1: how we treat immigrants. I want him in charge of immigration.

1836
01:45:01,439 --> 01:45:03,800
Speaker 1: They all should be given a job, like you said,

1837
01:45:03,840 --> 01:45:07,120
Speaker 1: in this administration. You know, even Joe Biden. We'll find

1838
01:45:07,160 --> 01:45:10,000
Speaker 1: something for him, you know, and and not and that

1839
01:45:10,080 --> 01:45:13,400
Speaker 1: White House greater. You know, somebody said that the other day.

1840
01:45:13,800 --> 01:45:17,559
Speaker 1: There's something for him to do. Uh, It's like there's

1841
01:45:17,640 --> 01:45:21,120
Speaker 1: something for everybody. We're all in the same boat. And

1842
01:45:21,200 --> 01:45:23,760
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, we're gonna sink or we're gonna

1843
01:45:23,760 --> 01:45:27,280
Speaker 1: swim together. And the boat has been going down and

1844
01:45:27,360 --> 01:45:29,720
Speaker 1: I refused to I refused to go down with it.

1845
01:45:30,280 --> 01:45:32,920
Speaker 1: And I believe when I see what you're doing, when

1846
01:45:32,960 --> 01:45:35,200
Speaker 1: I see what others are doing. Look how many people

1847
01:45:35,200 --> 01:45:39,320
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast you so Sophia pushes podcast. It's

1848
01:45:39,320 --> 01:45:42,720
Speaker 1: an amazing because for every one of these tents or

1849
01:45:42,800 --> 01:45:46,000
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands who are listening to you right now,

1850
01:45:46,240 --> 01:45:48,639
Speaker 1: they're gonna tell ten people about this, what's something they

1851
01:45:48,640 --> 01:45:51,920
Speaker 1: heard on your on your podcast, And suddenly the five

1852
01:45:52,280 --> 01:45:54,400
Speaker 1: thousand people listening to I don't know the exact number

1853
01:45:54,400 --> 01:45:56,479
Speaker 1: to day, I'm sorry if I've I've lowballed it here,

1854
01:45:57,960 --> 01:46:03,040
Speaker 1: but suddenly five is five million. So you're doing the

1855
01:46:03,080 --> 01:46:06,000
Speaker 1: Lord's work, and I thank you for it, and I'll

1856
01:46:06,000 --> 01:46:08,120
Speaker 1: write that oup ed with you, and we'll bring other

1857
01:46:08,160 --> 01:46:10,960
Speaker 1: people into this and well and we will succeed. Thank

1858
01:46:11,000 --> 01:46:18,800
Speaker 1: you so much. This show is executive produced by Me,

1859
01:46:19,120 --> 01:46:24,000
Speaker 1: Sophia Bush, and sim Sarna. Our supervising producer is Alison Bresnick.

1860
01:46:24,320 --> 01:46:28,559
Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Cate Linlee. Our editor is Josh Wendish,

1861
01:46:28,960 --> 01:46:31,439
Speaker 1: and our music was written by Jack Garrett and produced

1862
01:46:31,439 --> 01:46:34,040
Speaker 1: by Mark Foster. This show is brought to you by

1863
01:46:34,040 --> 01:46:34,960
Speaker 1: a brilliant Anatomy